Belgium’s WWII car graveyard

A ‘vintage car graveyard’ nestles in a Belgian forest, where old motors sit rusting among the trees, reports the Daily Mail’s Emma Reynolds. The cars are thought to have been left in the wood near the Walloon village of Châtillon, in Luxembourg province, by US soldiers stationed in southern Belgium during World War Two. When the war ended, troops were sent home but could not afford to ship the cars they had bought and so hid them in the forest. Since then, other cars have been added to the cemetery, many by soldiers stationed in the area after the war. Officers decided to leave the cars behind, in the hope of transporting them home later. They were driven up a hill and parked in a quiet spot, hidden from the outside world. Once back in the US, soldiers who wanted their cars back were told they would have to pay for the shipping, and not one car was retrieved. Over time, corrosion and decay have worn down the vehicles and what remained was stolen by locals and car collectors, with dashboards and logos particularly popular for fixing similar old models. At one point there were four car graveyards around Châtillon, containing as many as 500 vehicles, but only one ‘plot’ – Part XL – remains.  It contains 100 to 150 vehicles, and has been added to by soldiers stationed in the village in later years. The latest other cemetery on record sounds very different – it was relatively small and linked to several back gardens, with the cars dumped roughly together. The motors were all from the 1960s to the 80s, made in Europe and the US. Another contained cars made only in the 50s and 60s, left there by soldiers at a nearby US Army base, perhaps following postwar assignments.