Breaks My Heart

As an electrician by trade, I make a couple of trips each year to the Dominican Republic to do mission work for our church. When we stay in the capitol we always stay in the same small hotel. Last year, as I was enjoying the view of the ocean from my balcony, I looked down across the street and noticed, of all things, a '56 Chevy parked in a fenced complex under the trees. From my sixth floor vantage point, it looked pretty nice. And it looked quite out of place in the congested city.
Last week, at the beginning of another trip I again was staying in the hotel overnight, and noticed in the morning that the car was still there, but the tires were now flat. I also noticed that the gate was open to the parking lot. So, I grabbed a cup of thick Dominican coffee and took a little stroll across the street to take a look. For any lover of the tri-five Chevys it was a heartbreaking inspection.
The car had clearly been sitting there for a
long time. And over that time, sitting just one block from the salty ocean breeze, the bane of all classic cars, rust, had eaten a substantial portion of the car away. Mind you, I have no problem seeing an old car in a boneyard that had given up it's life long ago, but here was a perfectly good car that was--is--slowly rusting away due to neglect. Both of the rear roof pillars had rusted through and the roof has actually collapsed onto the car.
I wanted to lift the hood to see if the original engine was still there, but I was afraid that the whole thing would collapse.
As you can see from the photos, there's no rescuing this poor old girl. Really sad.