![\"LINCOLN-MARK-VII-COMTECH-3\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LINCOLN-MARK-VII-COMTECH-3.jpg\")
Hagerty Media\/Ford<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tStay up to speed with stories written by drivers, for drivers.<\/p>\n
Get automotive news, DIY tips, market trends, in-depth car profiles, and more right in your email inbox.<\/p>\n
On a long enough timeline, Mother Nature wins every battle she finds herself in. But there are moments, not long before she declares victory, where something sits on the brink, facing its last chance at survival before sliding down the backside of existence. The cars and trucks we love do, eventually, find themselves in those moments of inflection. The few months before the sapling punches a hole in the rotted floorboard. The spot in time where the moss is just starting, not yet dominating every crevice and cranny.<\/p>\n
To find a car in this state is to stumble upon hope and chance, and for a lucky few, \u201cthe car I found in the woods\u201d makes for a wonderful story of redemption. And of course, we\u2019re all dreamers here, so you can bet your bottom Bur Oak that we\u2019ve thought about what it would be like to battle back brush and give a neat machine a fresh start.<\/p>\n
Below are the picks for the vehicle that we\u2019d love to rescue from the woods and restore. After you read through ours, be sure to tell us in the comments what vehicle you\u2019d love to encounter on a wooded hike and bring home, or if you\u2019ve actually plucked one from its forest fate.<\/p>\n
A Screened, Sparse Lincoln<\/p>\n
Hagerty Media\/Ford<\/p>\n
I have mentioned the 1985 Continental Mark VII Comtech<\/a> edition far too many times during my tenure here at Hagerty, but my desire to own one of the 50 Comtech touchscreen Mark VIIs will never fade. If I need to pull one out of the woods and do a body swap with a 1988+ Mark VII with the hot 5.0 HO engine, so be it. \u2014Sajeev Mehta<\/p>\n Meaty Mopar on the Mind<\/p>\n I\u2019ve wandered across many heaps of metal formerly known as cars here in rural Ohio. They\u2019re often in young forests, so chances are they got parked in a field 30 or 40 years prior and the woods grew up around them as they slowly sank into the earth.<\/p>\n None of them have ever spoken to me enough to make me get a pickup and tow straps, but I do occasionally daydream about a scruffy Mopar. Gleaming, fully restored Hemi-powered show cars have their place, but ten times out of ten, I\u2019d take a clapped-out first-gen Road Runner with a few dents, a 440, and some fat tires under rusty sheet metal. Anybody know where one\u2019s hiding? \u2014Eddy Eckart<\/p>\n History in the Hickories<\/p>\n I read the first Barn Find Hunter book (The Cobra in the Barn) at an impressionable age, so coming to the rescue of a grimy old sports car has been in my daydream rotation for a long time now. In those daydreams is usually some sort of historically significant sports racer or formula car from the \u201950s or early-to-mid-1960s, like a Lotus Eleven, a Lister, a Devin,\u00a0 a Formula Junior, or some kind of early Can-Am car. Doesn\u2019t have to be some sort of ex-Works Le Mans thing or championship-winning icon. Just something with enough period adventures and names associated with it to make for a deep research project during restoration. \u2014Andrew Newton<\/p>\n Buick in the Boxelders<\/p>\n My fantasy is some kind of faded yellow muscle car, probably something like a \u201968 or \u201969 Buick GS400. These cars don\u2019t get the attention they should, compared with the Chevys and Pontiacs. Years ago, I went to the Buick GS Nationals gathering<\/a> in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and had so much fun I understood why people come back year after year, camp there, and catch up with old friends. <\/p>\n I\u2019d love to restore a GS400 with some period-correct Stage 1 bits like a high-performance camshaft, but then I\u2019d modernize the braking and suspension a bit for added usability. A cruiser like that is endlessly appealing and, unsurprisingly, well-suited for the kind of roads around southeast Michigan. Pulling it out of the woods means you have a clean slate to pick your own color, select your own wheels, maybe even devise some exterior graphics to make the car your own<\/a>. When you\u2019re rescuing a car from certain death like that, there\u2019s no pressure to preserve it for posterity or make it accurate to the era. \u2014Eric Weiner<\/p>\n Hometown Hero<\/p>\n A 1949 GMC pickup. There was a faded light blue version that always sat behind the detached garage at my parents\u2019 house while I was growing up. It had rust and all the hackneyed repairs that come with a pseudo-farm truck (we lived on roughly an acre; there was no farming to be done), but when push came to shove, that truck got work done.<\/p>\n The sand for the sandbox I played in as a kid? Hauled with that truck, much to the ire of the swapped 235-ci six under the hood. How I learned where a heater core is and what happens when it fails? That truck. Processing what seller\u2019s remorse is and how it never goes away? No surprise, that truck after watching it drive away and walking with dad back toward the house with a small bundle of cash.<\/p>\n One of those trucks will come back into my life, and rescuing it from the worst-case scenario seems appropriate in a strange way. I certainly don\u2019t want a restored version. \u2014Kyle Smith<\/p>\n Squarebody in the Silver Maples<\/p>\n Mine\u2019s not quite as old as Kyle\u2019s, but I\u2019d also love to drag an older pickup out of the woods and restore it. Mainly because interior work doesn\u2019t really interest me, and I could find a single-cab, long-bed pickup that has very little in the way of an interior that needs working on. I really like the early-1990s Fords, with the 300 inline-six. But I think this time I\u2019ll switch it up a bit and go for a 1984 Chevy C10. Timeless look, grumbling V-8, simple construction. Even I stand a chance at bringing one of those back to life! \u2014Nathan Petroelje<\/p>\n Stefan Goes Big<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1970-Road-Runner-Woods-OTC.jpg\")
Hagerty Media\/eBay<\/p>\n![\"Devin-Roadster-Race-Car\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Devin-Roadster-Race-Car.jpg\")
Hagerty Media\/eBay<\/p>\n![\"Buick-GS-Stage-1\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Buick-GS-Stage-1-bw.jpg\")
Hagerty Media\/eBay<\/p>\n![\"1949-Chevrolet-woods\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1949-Chevrolet-woods.jpg\")
Hagerty Media\/eBay<\/p>\n![\"Squarebody-Cab-Woods\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Squarebody-Cab-Woods.jpg\")
Hagerty Media\/eBay<\/p>\n![\"356-Carrera-woodsy\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/356-Carrera-woodsy-bw.jpg\")
Hagerty Media<\/p>\n