A video of an abandoned Ford dealership, filled with classic cars from the ’80s, has gone viral.
As you can imagine, the video made huge waves around the automotive community, with many questions being asked.
The vast majority have now been answered, and it makes for an intriguing story, to say the least.
So here goes the full story behind the abandoned zero-mile Fords…
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The video in question was posted to YouTube by Auto Retro and, since going live, has amassed more than two million views.
Back in 2021, the guys behind the YouTube channel found pictures online of an old Ford dealership that nobody knew where it was located.
Inside the dealership were six cars: three Sierras, an Escort, a Fiesta, and an Orion.
There’s something fascinating about cars being unearthed, like this rare concept car untouched for years in an old abandoned mansion, or these Saab cars found in a bankrupt dealership.
It turned out the pictures had been taken in 2010 and not knowing if the cars were still there, the guys set about trying to pinpoint the dealership’s location before traveling there from the UK.
After some internet sleuthing, aka trawling Google Maps, the guys figured out the dealership was in Bavaria, Germany.
The story goes, that the dealership was originally established around the middle of the 1960s and was the main Ford dealer in Ingolstadt.
The dealership’s owner, Josef Stock, found it hard to keep up with competition in the city, as Audi was by far the more popular marque.
Not only that but as Ford wouldn’t take back unsold cars, Stock was left with tends of unsold vehicles from previous years.
Apparently, the former Ford showroom in Bavaria was left to rot after its owner Josef Stock died in 1994.
In the mid-’80s, Ford pulled the plug on its partnership with Stock, who then became an independent dealer.
Sadly, Stock passed away in 1994, leaving behind more than 300 Ford cars from different eras with more than half of them being brand-new and never-registered vehicles.
In 1995, the family who had inherited the dealership sold off the majority of his cars, including most of the new ones.
The unsold cars, seen in the video, were moved into the showroom, which was then left as a memorial to the owner.
The late owner’s widow kept the building maintained, and clean and presumably cleaned the cars, too.
From time to time she’d allow people to come in and view the cars, but at some point, someone stole some parts and this put an end to welcoming visitors.
Having kept the place maintained until ended up in a care home, the family has failed to upkeep the cars and building, and the video shows how they stand today.
The story is compiled of information gathered from different sources, so no doubt there’s more to it – but it makes for an interesting story nonetheless.
