The OP's stash reminded me of something...
When I was a lad there was an old boy who lived on a farm up the road. He wasn't a farmer, he'd been a builder most of his life and earned good money during his working years. He'd bought the farm quite early on, and from the 1950s onwards had bought big old cars to run around in. Each car would be used for a few months then parked up around the back or in a shed.
Things like Lanchesters, Jags, Armstrong-Siddleys, Daimlers, etc, etc. In fact, the Jags were so common, I just lost count of them.
One shed was full of just about every British and European motorcycle ever made.
When I met him later on he invited me to have a look around his barns, which were full of these old mouldering heaps. At that time, they weren't worth much, except as scrap, as the real classic car and bike boom hadn't taken off, and they were interesting to me more as motoring history than any great love of classic cars or bikes.
Relatedly...
During the two Oil Shocks of the 70s, big old cars were going rapidly out of fashion as everybody started buying Minis and other shopping trolley-like cars that sipped fuel. The value of the gas guzzlers plummetted faster than a whore's knickers on pay day at the docks, as it seemed the end of the era of cheap petrol had finally arrived, as had been warned about.
I was in the motor trade at the time of the two Crises, and in the first one I could have taken my pick of several E-Type Jags. They were going for between £250 and £400. At the time it wasn't tiddlywink money, but was a fraction of what they'd been worth a year or two earlier.
During the second Oil Crisis I was offered a Jensen Interceptor for £400. Yeah, it needed a slushbox rebuild, but I could have done that.
The only reason I didn't take advantage of the deals available was that I was sure, like everyone else, that big old gas-guzzlers were done for and they'd be nothing but a money pit and millstone around my neck. Apart from that, I'd nowhere to keep them, living in flats (apartments) with no real parking space available.
Fast forward twenty years.
I was living in the countryside in Ireland, with all the space I could ever want to store some of the lost bargains of my youth. All the cars that later became classic motors, but at the time were just cheap old big bangers, could have been homed here, if I'd been able to keep them.
That time machine/phone is a good idea. I wonder if Vodafone will ever launch one.
