Chat with a barn find guy made me rethink my whole storage setup

I was talking to this older guy at a gas station in Ohio last week, he had a '57 Bel Air on a trailer. He said he stores his cars in a climate controlled pole barn with a dehumidifier running 24/7, even through winter. That hit different because I've been keeping my '72 Cutlass in a non-insulated garage with just a car cover and a few moisture bags. Has anyone else switched to a more controlled storage setup and noticed a big difference in rust or rubber rot?

2 comments

2 Comments

mark7311mo ago

People act like a little bit of moisture is the end of the world. My dad kept his '68 Camaro in a dirt floor barn for like 15 years and the only rust was on a rocker panel that was already bad when he got it. Rubber gets hard anyway, that's just what happens to 50 year old rubber no matter where you store it. I feel like that pole barn guy is probably the type to overthink everything, good for him but I bet a halfway decent garage with a couple damp traps would be fine. Not saying you should leave it out in the rain but the whole humidity controlled vault thing seems like overkill for most of us.

the_jason1mo ago

I read something similar a while back about how even just keeping a car in a garage that's attached to a house makes a huge difference compared to a detached one, because the house's foundation keeps the ground from freezing as much. That Ohio guy's setup sounds crazy but I bet his stuff really does last forever. I've got my own Cutlass (a '70, not a '72) and I just use a cheap carport with some tarps, and honestly the rubber bits on it are getting hard as rocks after just a few years. Maybe it's just me being lazy, but I keep meaning to look into one of those little plug-in dehumidifiers for my garage.