Many have none, some have one, some families have two, and celebrities, managers, or politicians might even have several. Not to mention world stars like Elvis Presley, who owned a whole fleet of cars: great cars, big and small, old and new, all polished and ready to drive. Near White/Georgia the largest Graveyard of cars worldwide are hidden in a forest - 4.200 cars hand the rust never sleeps..., like Neil Young sings.
Walter Dean Lewis can't claim that, but the 4,200 or even 4,400 cars that the man from Georgia owns are probably a world record for private car ownership. However, Lewis' cars, old and new, big and small, are no longer running. Quite the opposite: what the gray-haired man guards near the village of White on Highway 411 is likely the world's greatest treasure of rust.
Hidden in a deep forest
Hidden in a deep forest, on 40 hectares of picturesque forest in the North Georgia Foothills, very close to the town of Cartersville, are cars of all models, in all states of repair, from all major manufacturers from the past 80 or 90 years.
It is a wonderland of metal, this Old Car City, as Lewis called his empire. More than six miles of hiking trails run through the grounds, where over 4,000 vintage cars are hidden.
Whether you are a car enthusiast, nature lover, or urban explorer photographer, there is something for everyone here. Because this place, which is little known, offers a unique spectacle: the fusion of nature and old metal. Visitors can watch as nature reclaims what belongs to it.
Old Car City USA was originally founded in 1931 by Dean Lewis' parents as a small general store. Eighty years ago, it became a scrap yard, which Dean Lewis later took over.
In love with a scrap yard
At some point, the business was no longer profitable, and he came up with the idea of converting it into a vintage car scrap yard and art space. He can't say exactly why. "I started collecting them instead of crushing them." It's really nice "to get up every morning and look at old cars."
If you drive from Atlanta to Nashville, you'll pass by here. And if you've heard about the morbid charm of the open-air museum or seen a few pictures, you might decide to veer off the highway.
Nobody will be disappointed. After all, the largest collection of classic American cars in the world awaits you here, even if hardly any of them can be refurbished and restored. But there's also plenty of art to admire and a unique collection of artworks that Dean Lewis himself created.
The boss himself is as much of a wonder as his collection: he can name the make, model, and year of manufacture of most of his cars and describe exactly their sales success—or lack thereof.
The boss is making art
Behind the large barn where Lewis exhibits his art, you'll find decades of road cruisers and Cadillacs long gone. Pure nostalgia, from the 1920s to the 1970s, is around every corner. One of the first cars here is the last one that Elvis Presley bought in his life.
Then comes the forest, which now consists more of steel than wood. The classic cars, the most recent possibly from the early 1980s, line the well-maintained paths, half or almost completely swallowed up by nature. Engine blocks are pierced by tree trunks. Convertibles are impaled. Rust has eaten away at the bodies, and nature and machine have become one.
All of these old car dreams share the same fate, from the 1915 Pontiac Oakland to a 1975 Monte Carlo, a 1930s tractor, and the old ice cream van. Every brand and every model is represented here, pretty much everything built between 1918 and 1972 is quietly rusting away.
From 40 to 4.000
The largest open-air car museum in the world covers almost 30,000 square meters, a landscape of bushes and ivy, steel and plastic. In the 1970s, there were only 40 cars here, the boss recounts, with cotton fields next to them, as the area once belonged to a cotton farm.
Little by little, the unique collection grew within the wooded area: "The only thing I know about is cars and trucks," Lewis shrugs.
A world apart from the rest of the world. Lewis has a few quirky employees with names like "Rockey," "Monkey Wrench," and "Fast Eddie." They tinker around with the cars, but without the ambition to get them running again. For Lewis, the decay in the forest is deliberate.
Don't cry
Above the entrance to the area hangs a sign that reads: "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." Lewis and his crew also leave signs with sayings along the scrap heaps. Visitors can also leave their own words of wisdom at the "Tree of Knowledge."
At first, Lewis didn't even charge admission to his unique exhibition. But when he saw a photo of his property sold for about $550, he realized that he was sitting on a treasure that could attract visitors. Owner Lewis is not getting rich from visitors. However, he "could have sold this place a long time ago and moved to Hawaii with the money." But he simply cannot part with his cars. Instead, he is planning a second home - in the middle of his "Old Car City."
