Barn found, will travel

But in 2025 that’s almost what has happened. Firstly, I’m a curious so-and-so. I love the thrill of the chase when it comes to sniffing out a car, and with barn find cars you never entirely know what you’re going to discover. I’ll rewind a bit. On my YouTube channel The Late Brake Show I wanted to ensure there was clear variety in the content. I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed to just reviewing new cars, working on classic project cars, walking around private car collections (or Car Caves as we call them), appreciating EVs or shouting ‘GUYZ’ at the start of every sentence.

So I started the channel as a brand to reflect as accurately as possible what the inside of my automotive brain looked like.

The barn find playlist unofficially began with an old neighbour, who had a brown Mk1 Escort on her driveway under multiple tarps. We used to chat and eventually she showed me the car, because she realised it needed to be sold. It was a two-door 1100 base model with just thirty-three thou’ on the clock. I loved the process of figuring out how it had survived such a chunk of time. I found a buyer and everyone was happy, but I didn’t think to film anything. Then a few weeks later she said, ‘If you’re lucky I might show you the other car one day’. A car catnip of a comment, if ever there were one.

It took months of polite neighbour badgering, but eventually I was permitted to see the other car. Another Mk1 Escort, but this time one with 900 original miles from new. It was across the road from my then home. I grabbed my Sony Handycam and a shonky inherited tripod and tried to capture the initial door opening, cobweb sweeping and decloaking of this remarkable hibernating Escort. The lady’s uncle bought both cars new, and had one as his everyday transport.

The other – a blue 1300 GXL – was almost never used. Saved as best, in that way old people save certain cutlery and crockery for special occasions that never really happen. When he died she inherited the cars. This became my first barn find video, however I edited and uploaded that video some five years after we shot it. And that was still two years before the channel was properly launched. But boy was that day an adventure. My child-like curiosity pulled me towards the other trinkets in the garage, the eccentric backstory and how this car came to sit for so long.

Third fiddle. Remember I mentioned it earlier? Well, as I’m now 70-plus barn find films deep into this job, I am realising that the third most important element of barn finds is the location. The second is the vehicle. Why? Because the most fascinating aspect is always the human story behind the machinery. The eccentricity. The reasoning. The weird decision making. The refusal to sell. Births. Deaths. Marriages. Families. So many reasons why a car is parked in a shed and left. And this is what I feed off most of all now. Sure, it’s exciting to see how a car has managed to survive decades of weather and rodents, but even more amazing is to hear stories of family holidays, naughty street racing, liaisons with rock stars and chronic total hoarding addiction. I never anticipated having to deal with such deep emotions and family complications surrounding a metal box, but it really happens.

My first official barn find on The Late Brake Show was a single owner Austin Allegro. Fascinating? To me, yes. To others? I wasn’t sure anyone would give a shit. Well, nearly a million people have watched me pull out a very rare quartic steering wheeled 1750SS Agro since that video was published in February 2020.

Weeks before the world imploded with the ’rona, a good friend locally was tipped off about his eccentric neighbour who’d owned the 1973 Allegro since it was new. I self-filmed the extraction process, which involved some light ‘cardening’ (foliage removal in order to access a dormant vehicle) and the comments section soon filled up with reminiscing, mentions of other languishing old nails, and the feeling that they were accompanying me on my little journey. The only difference is they could watch from the warmth of their homes without stepping in rat plop, or snagging their trusty fleece on a thorn bush. Said fleece was only worn because it is damn warm. It’s since become known as the BFF (Barn Find Fleece) and we even sell a version of it in my merch shop.

I travel all over the country with a boot-load of tools and cans of fuel. I regularly climb out of an EV that reeks of E5 (oh the irony) and spend long, unpredictable days trying to see if we can get a hibernating car to fire up. It is not glamorous like a supercar unveil or a chunky corduroy concours, but I’m okay with that. It’s wholesome. It’s good for the soul. I think. I am no mechanic, but I’ve channelled the few skills I acquired through my talented dad and brother in order to methodically test and turn over sleeping engines.

Do they always start up? Of course they bloody don’t, but that’s the point. Nothing is staged, there are no recces and no daft incidental music. Sometimes the engines burst into life, often we clean the bodywork, but every single time we witness a forgotten car being shown daylight for the first time in decades. I have filmed Volvo 245 estates owned by nuclear power station safety inspectors, Lamborghini Espadas (two!) in stone barns and stately homes, a 911 with a very emotional story attached to it, algal Audi Ur-quattros and MG-badged hot hatches that win over a million views.

The skill of the barn find video isn’t an exact science, but in my experience it usually pays dividends to talk to older folk and politely enquire about cars of the past. There was a time when I had to chase leads hard like a tabloid reporter. Now we have emails flooding in to the tune of 300-strong on a spreadsheet.

So maybe I should permanently hunt barn finds, but I don’t want to be typecast. Besides, I still am trying to keep this feeling like a hobby. To this day I get the same thrill from opening a creaky door and being greeted with dust and bric-a-brac upon the roof of some old classic as I did when we’d cycled miles to find a vandalised Datsun 120Y in a field. I feel fortunate to do all of the above for a living, and I genuinely receive as much joy from extracting a Sierra XR4i from a shed as I do driving the latest 911 GT3. Think of that what you will.

If any of you have watched any of the episodes, thank you. If any of you know of a dilapidated car that could be my next subject then do get in touch. Do I ever buy any of the barn finds? Not so far. Then again…