Thousands of vehicles are at the end of their useful life every day around Victoria. To the employees of Southern Towing & Car Removals, these cars are just another day at the office, hooking up, clearing away, and towing away scrapped machinery to authorized recycling facilities. The average onlooker is oblivious to the fact that a blown-out, dented and rusted sedan in a tilt-tray truck is being transported down the Monash Freeway. If the tilt-tray could talk, however, it would tell you that each and every junk vehicle is a time capsule, a mechanical time capsule, a cinematic time capsule, and sometimes, a complete mystery.
People often do remember to remove the obvious items before dropping a car off for recycling: the garage door clicker, the house keys, the dashcam and perhaps some more loose change that’s rattling around in the center console. But just like driving for decades brings about deep forgetfulness. Unique items fall under seats, behind glovebox linings, or deep into the boot’s hollow panels, as a result of keeping them in this way for years due to subconscious habits, frantic mornings and years of accumulated clutter.
We are professional Melbourne car junk yards, and have seen everything thrown away when collecting scrap cars across Melbourne, Australia. Whether it’s a replica of a 19th century city or something that makes your operator’s recovery operators raise an eyebrow in wonder, here are the authentic behind-the-wheel revelations.
Melbourne Time Capsules: Relic of a Bygone Era
An interesting thing about acquiring a vehicle abandoned in a backyard shed or left under a tarp in outer suburbs such as Dandenong or Frankston for 30 years is the preservation of history. If a car ceases to run in 1994 and the car never moves again, then the interior of the car is frozen at the exact moment when the car stopped running. If you are dealing with one yourself, our guide on removing abandoned cars from your property explains the process.
Our teams often find well-preserved cultural artifacts under the carpet and in the tape deck of early-90s hatchbacks. We have discovered original ticket stubs for famous shows at the old Festival Hall, worn parking ticket stubs from the ’80s and hand-labeled cassette mixtapes for such shows as “Cruisin’ Down To Sorrento ’91”. Physical history of Australian money can be unearthed from the deepest floorboard wells of true vintage vehicles when cleaning them out. Round silver 1966 fifties coins are not unusual to find, paper one dollar notes behind dashboard panels and pristine, uncirculated 1966 plastic bank notes are the early days of poly-substitutes.
The Utterly Bizarre: Things that Defy Explanation
Retro media is in itself delightful, but some finds are straight in the surreal. If you’re unloading hundreds of vehicles per month, the law of large numbers means you’ll inevitably discover things you’re so amazed that the whole yard crew is unable to say a word.
Our driver was called to collect a mannequin who had been dressed and placed in the car boot of a car that was being removed for scrap at a residential property in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, when the driver arrived there he lowered the tilt-tray, secured the winch and checked the car’s structural integrity. After releasing the back latch to make sure there was no dangerous loose debris rolling around, they were greeted by a life-sized, fully-clothed mannequin wearing a tuxedo, a pair of sunglasses and a hat. In a panicky moment, it turned out to be an old prop from a local amateur theater enthusiast who had simply forgotten his silent passenger.
In another case, an old car came in at our recyclers yard, and the spare tyre well in the boot was full to capacity; hundreds of hotel soaps, all individually wrapped, and all free gifts collected from all over the world. The previous owner must have accumulated a clean, fragrant collection of items which far outlasted this car’s alternator, as evidenced by the long list of items out of this man’s life.
This is common: You find a lost plastic toy or a pair of lost sunglasses. That of a beautifully preserved, taxidermied falcon mounted on a wooden perch fit snugly into the broken glovebox compartment is not. It is still not known how the owner managed to get this bird into the dash, and why it was left behind when the car was sold for scrap towing.
Cress: An Uncommon Green
Many people think that anything that is left in a junk car is junk. In many cases, high dollar items fall through the cracks during a hectic move or estate cleanout and our team is called in with our keen sense of professionalism and ethics to help return these valuable items to their rightful owner.
Boxes are loaded on cars parked in back blocks in cases where old properties are cleared out in a rush. There have been several cases of custom van floors having heavy metal boxes bolted under them or under a spare wheel. Transparency is our approach; should a violation of the rules be discovered, the original owner will be contacted right away. One particular example, a family lockbox was left forgotten and held decades of original birth certificates, land titles and historic war medals.
The Abandoned High-End Tech: In today’s modern world, when vehicles are moving through service cycles at an ever-increasing pace, newer cars that are either written off or scrapped because of catastrophic mechanical issues may contain high-end consumer electronics. We routinely unearth tablets, high-end noise-canceling headphones and expensive power tools in the back of trade utilities under deep work blankets.
Across Melbourne, the old tradition of keeping ‘emergency cash’ in the car is still prevalent. We’ve opened visors, removed roof linings and unscrewed center consoles to reveal envelopes full of cash, stuffed by an elderly motorist years ago for the rainy day and later forgotten. Cars with a bit of cash value can even earn you money, so check our scrap car removal prices.
The Biological Inhabitants: When Nature Moves In
A car parked in a leafy Melbourne suburb such as Eltham or further afield in the Yarra Valley, shifts from a mode of transport into prime real estate for the local environment. When our tilt-tray comes to raise the vehicle, there’s often everybody inside.
The Possum Apartments: The engine bay of a dead car is warm, weatherproof and very secure. We went to inspect vehicles and discovered a mother brushtail possum sitting up and staring back at us from a cosy nest of old engine insulation and dried gum leaves.
Spiders are an integral part of Australian towing stories, and they’re no exception with the infamous Huntsman colonies. Huntsman spiders make these cars large hiding spaces if they’re parked under eucalyptus trees for a long time. A lift onto a tilt-tray jostles the car, sometimes causing dozens of harmless, but startlingly large spiders to all go running through the car doors... even the most seasoned tow truck operator’s nerves are tested...
The Professional Standard: Handling the Unseen
In revealing these “confessions,” our team emphasizes the amusing and surprising aspects of salvageing vehicles, but also brings to light an integral part of our business philosophy: professionalism, safety and complete confidentiality.
When you need to sell your car at Southern Towing & Car Removals, we realize it can be a difficult and emotional process, especially if you are clearing your home or dealing with the sale of a deceased loved one’s car. Each of our vehicles’ structures are treated with utmost respect. Before each car is shredded industrially or depolluted in an environmentally friendly manner, we have strict checking procedures to recover personal documentation, family heirlooms and sensitive items. See how old vehicles are safely recycled once they leave the yard.
Conclusion
If you ever do spot a “tilt-tray” truck on Melbourne’s busy roads towing a rusted, broken down scrap vehicle, think of something besides an old piece of steel shoving its way to a processing yard. It is a ship, designed to take the families down to the holidays, to sing to one another on the route to work and to have a special, secret history in its panels.
Whether it’s a vintage Melways or a secret safe, things left behind tell a great, wacky tale of life in Victoria and we’re proud to bring it to a safe, sustainable and absolute professional finish. Contact Southern Towing to book yours, and learn about our team.