A Redwood Falls man saved nearly 400 old trucks. Now he's letting them all go.
Row after row of old trucks sits lined up by make and model on a lot in Redwood Falls — Fords, Chevrolets, Dodges, Internationals, pickups and farm trucks and a few muscle cars mixed in. By the end of the weekend, almost all of them will belong to somebody else.
The collection belongs to Tim Wertish, who calls it Vintage Vehicle Rescue. VanDerBrink Auctions, LLC, says the sale covers nearly 400 vehicles, and it will run over two days, Friday and Saturday, in Redwood Falls.
"Probably just an addiction loving all this old stuff," Wertish said. "And basically rescuing 'em from the crusher."
Wertish started with Tonka trucks and moved on to the real thing at 16. He started this collection in 2019, and it grew fast from there.
"From '20 to '24 is when it probably ramped up heavy, during the pandemic," he said.
Most of what's parked there came from close to home. Everything standing on the lot generally came from within a 100-mile radius, Wertish said, and most of it turned up on Craigslist.
He and his uncle Jesse would map out a run to pick up a single truck and come home with leads on a dozen more.
"We'd plan a trip. I'd pick 'em up, we'd head from here to Wheaton to Luverne to St. Peter and maybe to pick up one truck," Wertish said. "By the time we got home we'd stumbled across 10, 20 more. They're just everywhere."
The best part, he said, was meeting the people — mostly farmers — and finding out what else was sitting in the yard that nobody had mentioned on the phone.
"It was just like an Easter egg hunt," he said.
Some hunts got complicated. Coming back from Grand Forks on one of their longest runs, Wertish and a friend stopped at a place near Appleton, where the owner told them there were cars past the cornfield. They walked through the field and down to a creek to look them over. On the way back, the cows in the pasture they'd crossed decided they wanted to play.
The heavy trucks were the ones he chased hardest. There are 35 Ford farm trucks in the collection.
"When I was really into the heavy trucks, these were the ones I was after. The hardest ones to find, so it's a bigger challenge," he said.
One of them, a 1948 Chevrolet, was headed for a scrap yard when a friend called him about it.
"So I told them that's a bad idea," Wertish said.
Very little of it runs. Asked how many would start, Wertish said it would be tough to get five going. He expects most buyers will be people looking for a project.
"There'll be a few collectors, but I think there's enough stuff here. Everybody can have something," he said. Most of it, he figures, will end up back on the road as street rods, with the rougher trucks becoming yard art and parts.
Asked whether he ever had an end goal, Wertish said he never did.
"No. No. Just going to go as long as it was fun and keep on trucking," he said.
He's selling because the property sold, and because the people asking about it didn't stop asking.
"Just being approached by property owners, buyers — we kind of just blew 'em off. And thought we can't sell this stuff, it's too cool," he said. "Then as they keep grinding on you and you sit back and think maybe now is the time."
The hardest part won't be the trucks.
"So my son and I would drive out here every morning before school," Wertish said, pausing. "So he's going to be sad, but it's fine."
Whether Saturday is really the end is another question. Asked if he'd start collecting again once his kids are grown, Wertish laughed.
"I knew you were going to ask that," he said. "I'll probably never say no."
The sale is at 33430 327th St. in Redwood Falls. Gates open for a preview at 10 a.m. Friday, with the first day's bidding starting at 3 p.m. on about 90 lots of parts and project vehicles. The main sale of trucks, pickups and cars starts at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
Bidders can take part in person or online, and the full inventory — including a 1966 Dodge Hemi Charger the auction company says runs and drives — is posted on VanDerBrink Auctions' listing for the sale.
