A Farmer’s Car Left Forgotten Under Old Corn Bags Sold For A Fortune

Maybe if the family had realized just how much this beat-up old car was worth, they would have taken more care of it. As things played out, though, they just kept it in storage for ages. It became infested by all manner of critters and ended up covered in many years’ worth of refuse.

The car arrived into the Scherers’ lives a long time ago. The family patriarch, Darryl, had purchased the vehicle and gifted it to his spouse Vivian. It was Vivian who drove the thing more than anyone else, using it to do the school run and to get wherever else she needed to be.

But even though the car had been used for the most everyday of tasks, it was always clear it was something special. It was sleek and sporty, and it definitely looked quite a bit cooler than other families’ cars. All the local children had wanted the chance to hop inside for a spin.

In later years, though, the car fell into disrepair. In 2006 Vivian passed away, and her husband soon made the decision to move house. He took the car with him, but he placed it in storage inside his new property’s shed. There it stayed, succumbing to the ravages of time.

Darryl had always intended to work on the old car and give it a new lease of life. Unfortunately, he never got around to it. He passed away at the end of 2021 leaving this old, rusty car behind him. Now it was down to his kids to deal with the vehicle — and they were in for a shock.

As family cars go, this one was definitely unusual. It was a Holden HK Monaro GTS 327 Bathurst, dating back to 1968. It was capable of transporting the Scherers from point A to point B, but it could also reach some incredible speeds if asked. According to one test, such vehicles could hit 124mph.

We might tend to think of ’60s muscle cars like this HK Monaro as being American, but this vehicle came from Down Under. Australia also produced its own range of muscle cars, and this one was up there with the best. It might not have necessarily been as fast as some of its American equivalents of the era, but it was still special.

The HK Monaro, then, was quite an audacious selection for a family car. But it seems Darryl Scherer had wanted the very best when he picked this vehicle up all those years ago. It was, after all, a special purchase for him, as his daughter Noeleen Schulte explained to British newspaper The Guardian in June 2022.

Speaking of her now-departed father, Noeleen said, “Dad [was] a hard-working cane farmer, born and bred in Bundaberg [a city in Queensland, Australia]... It was the first car he ever bought that wasn’t his father’s. Usually Pop would buy a new car, then Dad would buy his old car off him.”

Darryl had clearly wanted the first vehicle he bought from someone other than his dad to be extra-special. But even so, the vehicle wasn’t even going to be for him. He was really getting it for Vivian, who would be the one driving it around more than anyone else.

Once she got the keys, Vivian drove her new car here, there, and everywhere. She was even known to take the area’s children on school trips, whenever it was necessary. As her daughter Noeleen said, “It was Mum’s car. She took it everywhere — she was the main driver of it.”

Noeleen actually recalls the very first time she laid eyes on the vehicle. She said, “I can remember the day he bought it. We were waiting to be picked up from school and here’s this bright, shiny car that looked really cool and then we look in and it was Mum in there!”

The Scherer children were delighted with their new ride. As Noeleen tells it, all the other kids were jealous. She said, “Me and my three sisters were the coolest kids at school, basically, because every kid wanted a ride in the car.” Luckily for these other children, Vivian was always willing to take them for a spin.

The car clearly occupied a special place in the hearts of the Scherer family, not to mention everyone else in their local area. But they never fully appreciated just how many other people out there would have been interested in their family vehicle. This machine was far more significant than they ever grasped.

As mentioned, the car’s fortunes took a turn in 2006 after its main driver Vivian passed away. Darryl kept hold of the vehicle, always with the intention of fixing it up and getting it back to its best. Life, it seems, got in the way, though, and those restoration works never came to fruition.

After his wife’s death, Darryl upped sticks and moved to the edge of Bundaberg. He had a bit of land out there, plus there was a shed. He left the car inside there for storage, always intent on working on it again. That never happened, sadly, and in 2021 he passed away at the ripe old age of 82.

The conditions inside the shed weren’t exactly ideal. The car eventually came to be covered with empty cereal sacks, and animals moved in and made it their home. Dirt and grime covered the exterior, and by 2022 the engine couldn’t have been in good nick, either: nobody had fired it up in 16 years, after all.

The car was in a state, and it was taking up space. It was time for it to move on, finally. That responsibility was left to Darryl and Vivian’s kids, who, in turn, sought some help to deal with the vehicle. They reached out to Bill Young, who plies his trade as an auctioneer.

Bill was shown the car, meaning he knew firsthand how bad its condition was. Speaking to The Guardian, he recalled, “The car was parked in a corner covered in empty corn bags with a pool liner thrown over it. Rats and vermin had been living in it. There was a shelf built in front of it so you couldn’t even move it.”

Still, Bill’s expert eye could still see potential in this old, banged-up car. He said, “It hadn’t run in 16 years and we were told to leave it like that for the auction, so it was covered in dust and dirt. But it was all intact and that’s what made it special.”

Despite its poor shape, the car was definitely worth something. Bill had an inkling it would sell for something like A$50,000, maybe as much as A$80,000. These are Australian dollars, of course. That wouldn’t be a bad price, especially seeing as how the car had just been gathering dust for 16 years: the Scherer children were in for a little monetary boost.

As things played out, though, it became clear that Bill’s estimate was off. Way off. Once he started advertising the car, it became clear it was generating quite a bit of interest. With that, the auctioneer reassessed his figures, now landing on an expected sale price of A$120,000. A hefty sum, but even this would be proven wrong.

Somewhere between 300 and 400 people got in touch with Bill to express an interest in the car. Most of these people were based in major Australian cities, but one was actually from China. This old car had attracted global interest, and its eventual selling price reflected the demand. In the end, it went for $200,000. In case you’re wondering, at current rates, that’s not far short of $140,000.

The family were flabbergasted. But why was this car worth so much money? Why did someone shell out $200,000 to own it? Well, this car — the 1968 Holden HK GTS Monaro 327 — once won at Bathurst, a famous, 620-mile-long race that takes place in New South Wales each year. This car was the first ever Monaro to take first prize, making it a true collector’s item.

The Scherer family had known their car was extraordinary, but they never realized the extent of it. Still, it always held a special place in their hearts. Noeleen recalled, “It’s been parked in the garage but not forgotten, we all knew it was there. We were always made aware of what it is and what it meant to him.”

The tragedy of the story, as Noeleen sees it, is that her dad never got the opportunity to tinker and work on the car. She said, “It’s just sad that he didn’t get to restore it. He was a man with a list and it was always on his list to do but he’s never got to it.”

Still, Noeleen and her siblings can’t be too upset with how things worked out. After all, their old, unused car just sold for an astonishing amount of money. She said, “We knew it would be amazing but we never thought it would go to what it went to. So we were very happy with the outcome.”

As for Young, he’s also delighted with this most unexpected of developments. After all, he hasn’t made a sale this big in a quarter-century of auctioneering. Reflecting on the situation, he said, “It was just a family car, it drove the kids to school. What was probably worth nothing went for $200,000.”

Young was clearly shocked by the interest the car generated, but he was obviously very pleased. He said, “Inquiries started coming in from every capital city, especially Sydney and Melbourne. We even got a call from Bangkok... The inquiries blew me out of the water. My phone never stopped ringing.”

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