Vehicle Graveyard?

FluffyMcDeath

FluffyMcDeath

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There's an airport south of Jacksonville Florida, on the lake near Green Cove Springs - and it looks like it's in use - there is a plane on the ground and cars in the lot of a support building. No idea who owns the airport but most of the runways seem to have been repurposed.

There's no way for me to know if someone is stockpiling vehicles for some reason or whether there is overproduction of a certain type of vehicle that the dealerships just can't move - but either way - it's a lot of vehicles. First time I saw the image zoomed out it looked photoshopped, but zooming in it looks legit.

Google Maps

Anyone know what this place is?
 
Cars parked in funny patterns. Maybe we should print out the screen shot and try reading it with a bar code scanner to see if there's a hidden message?
 
Glaucus said:
Cars parked in funny patterns. Maybe we should print out the screen shot and try reading it with a bar code scanner to see if there's a hidden message?
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Just trying to get an estimate of the numbers it looks like there are about 7000 vehicles there. It also appears that there is only one model of automobile there. That's about 10 to 50 million dollars sitting on the runway depending on what vehicle. Are they GM's? Is the government buying the output of the factories just to keep them running?

Funny that there are holes in the rows too. You'd think that if they were just warehousing them then they'd just cram them together and remove them from the edges but it's more like they are sorted - there are holes in the middles of rows. It seems silly to go through the trouble of parking them like that unless the order was important. Maybe they are owned by multiple parties and it's just easier to track by keeping them in a known position.
 
Glaucus said:
Well, there was a GM plant in Jacksonville that closed in December of last year: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/bus ... 99611.html

Red, I think you should take a road trip and check it out for us. :mrgreen:

EDIT: Found the Jacksonville GM Plant (I think): GM Plant
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That could be it. Looks like the photo was taken June of 2008. Cars started piling up there around the end of 2007 (according to Google Earth time slider). That would put it in and around the time frame that folks were looking at the crazy gas prices and deciding that maybe they'd rather buy a smaller car - leading to a lot of SUV's being stored on any vacant bit of asphalt.

I wonder what kind of vehicle that GM plant was making. Hmm?
 
Thanks Fluffy, you got me running around the place in Street View trying to find something interesting. From what I can tell the whole place is a dump. Even the shipping docs to the NE appear to be in disarray.
 
Glaucus said:
Thanks Fluffy, you got me running around the place in Street View trying to find something interesting. From what I can tell the whole place is a dump. Even the shipping docs to the NE appear to be in disarray.
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Street view is cool. :)

By the way, Red doesn't need to drive by there. The manager's name is P. Ted Mcgowan and the phone number is 904-284-3505 (Reynolds Airpark - privately owned and making a little extra income with some spare runways no doubt). Don't suppose the vehicles are still there though, but if they are - maybe they want to get rid of them for cheap?
 
redrumloa said:
Glaucus said:
Red, I think you should take a road trip and check it out for us. :mrgreen:
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Believe it or not, it would be a 5 & 1/2 hour drive each way :shocked:
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What's your point Jim? You have Monday off :)
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Anyone know what this place is?
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If I were to guess, I would say that prior to the GM plant closing, they couldn't sell a spitload of vehicles (SUV's or otherwise) that year, so they prepped and parked the cars. Even if they have zero miles on them, they can't really be sold as new. While they could let slip into the used car market, the sheer quantity might literally crash the market, keeping people from buying actual new cars

As horrible as this sounds -- and again, I'm guessing -- the most logical thing is that these vehicles (which aren't all white, they're just prepped in that white "tape" which protects new cars in transit) were "written off" in the buyout and will just be allowed to sit and rot, or at best, very slowly released to the government as fleet vehicles over the next few years. It's also possible that they could be used as a spare part graveyard.

Wayne
 
They're also not all the same make and model.

While they're mostly the same size in the photo, some are clearly four-door, some are vans, and some are SUVs, which drives my idea about them not all being white. I don't know of ANY car maker that clears that many white vehicles in a single year, even as fleet vehicles.
 
Wayne said:
They're also not all the same make and model.

While they're mostly the same size in the photo, some are clearly four-door, some are vans, and some are SUVs, which drives my idea about them not all being white. I don't know of ANY car maker that clears that many white vehicles in a single year, even as fleet vehicles.
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Wayne, you have good eyes - or some really cool software.

I doubt that they are still there though since the photo is old. If they are then somebody must be paying the bill because I don't expect the airpark to leave a couple of runways all clogged up without getting a dime for it. If no-one was paying the storage anymore I think they'd have the legal right to auction to stuff off to cover their "costs".
 
I'm sure, as stated, you found an overflow lot. Just a temporary place to store new production vehicles before they get shipped off to destinations. They're a pretty common sight around here. That's an impressively sized one, though! Looks like they are fleet vehicles. Must have expected a big demand on them.

I could probably spot you smaller overflow lots around metro Detroit on Google satellite views. Of course, all I can find right now is a Ford Truck shipping pen.

The two holding pens I could think of off-hand were empty at the time the sat flew over them. :lol:
 
Well, no where near as impressive and in fact looks like shit due to over exposure (either by the sun or intentionally), but here's a lot full of cars that just happens to be down the street from where I live. No, there is no former GM plant anywhere here. This is the old Kapyong military base (former home to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) and those vehicles are all government owned. Just sitting there, and have been doing so for years. Our tax money hard at work.

sat: http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF ... 5&t=h&z=18

street: http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF ... 1,,0,-1.89
 
Glaucus said:
This is the old Kapyong military base (former home to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) and those vehicles are all government owned. Just sitting there, and have been doing so for years. Our tax money hard at work.
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Cool. Look at all the trucks I own. I should go for a drive. Think anyone would mind?
 
In related news the A-Team is released next week. Now we now where BA got those kicking wheels.
 
faethor said:
In related news the A-Team is released next week.
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I didn't even know they were doing time. What'd they get busted for?
 
I didn't even know they were doing time. What'd they get busted for?
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They're a crack commando unit that was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit... :lol:

Of course, the new movie looks to be a crime against us all.
 
ilwrath said:
Of course, the new movie looks to be a crime against us all.
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Oh man. All the things I've lived through and thought I'd never have to see again. Exxon Valdez, The A Team. What's next? Chernobyl?
 
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