Head north from Atlanta and, eventually, you will stumble upon a rusty signboard reading “The world’s oldest junkyard.” Step inside this North Georgia forest, and you will find a 34-acre compound with rows upon rows of mostly rusted American cars, trucks, vans, and even school buses. You have reached Old Car City, the world’s largest classic car junkyard. There’s a lot more to Old Car City than its collection of over 4,000 cars, some of them dating back to the 1930s. Old Car City aside, there are some cool junkyards across America, like a Porsche junkyard in North Carolina. Or a 10,000-car pick-and-pull in Phoenix, Arizona.
Old Car City is now an open-air museum situated on 34 acres of forested land — a haunting piece of American car history — and a place where nature and cars have become intertwined. The place so huge that it takes several hours to walk through it all. The unique nature trail inside Old Car City costs $30 per person. Some degree of fitness is required for attempting to check out all the cars here. Before we talk more, let’s begin with where it all started.
Store to museum
The story began in 1931, when the Lewis family opened a general store selling everything from clothing to gasoline and car parts. The switch to the salvage business came courtesy of World War II. The war brought scarcity and a shortage of rubber and metal, as most available resources were devoted to military expenditures. Identifying a need in the market, the Lewis family turned their general store into a salvage yard, where they would bring in scrap cars to sell their parts.
There wasn’t always a huge amount of cars on the lot. In fact, in the ’70s, the number of cars stood at just 40, growing exponentially since then. It was the world’s largest classic car junkyard until current owner Dean “Mayor” Lewis decided to stop selling salvage parts and convert the entire lot into a museum. It is a one-of-a-kind museum where you walk around nature and rusted cars feel like art installations. In a lot of places, there are trees growing through the cars. When you park cars in one place for over 30 years, Mother Nature does take over.
Dean Mayor Lewis
When you own a place like Old Car City, it’s only natural that you be called Mayor. Mayor Walter Dean Lewis grew up around his parents’ salvage yard business, spending his life around classic cars and trucks. So, when he inherited Old Car City from his parents, Dean had a plan to save and preserve cars rather than sell off their parts. Over the years, Dean spent a lot of time and money buying crashed and junk vehicles to add to his collection. He’d buy from everywhere and everyone — individuals, salvage auctions, even recycling yards.
Every year, he added more cars to his collection, to the point that he had to buy more land to store them. Despite being in the salvage business, it was hard to buy car parts from Dean. He has a deep attachment to his cars, and you had to have deep pockets to convince Dean part with his lovelies. You’d be better off checking out the thousands of flood-damaged enthusiast cars showing up at Florida auctions. Thankfully, Dean realized there was more money in converting his junkyard into a museum and charging visitors for it.
Fame in obscurity
Walk through the 6 miles of nature trails, weaving through 34 acres of forest and cars, and you are blessed with a lesson in American automotive history. You’ll find cars dating from the 1930s all the way to the 1980s, but it is mostly filled with cars from the ’50s and ’60s, an era known as the golden age of American automobiles. It even has iconic cars, like a Lincoln Mark V, as well as a 1946 Ford truck used in the 1983 film “Murder in Coweta County,” starring Johnny Cash and Andy Griffith. Thankfully, these cars are safely stored inside the main building, not surrendered to nature like others.
Besides classic cars, Old Car City has other attractions, too, like “Fast Eddie” McDaniel. Fast Eddie grew up with Dean, and the two forged a childhood friendship around rusting steel and wood. Nowadays, if you are lucky, you can find him behind a piano playing the blues.
The right thing
The internet is divided about Old Car City and rightfully so. Some enthusiasts think the cars deserve a better chance, to be in the hands of owners who would restore them and drive them the way they are meant to driven. The other half thinks that Old Car City is a cool idea, as it’s interesting being able to see thousands of different cars in one place. The controversy grows deeper once you factor in the nobility rotting in this place.
While Old Car City has its share of AMCs, Chryslers, and Mercurys, it also has rare specimens. There are cars you’d never expect to see in a junkyard that cost a pretty penny today. That includes a 1968 Dodge Coronet Super Bee, which could fetch upward of $100,000, and an Oldsmobile 442,which boasts similarly high prices today. There’s also a 1970 Dodge Challenger that could sell for big bucks if restored but is now nothing more than a rusted heap.
