Excerpts:

"Walk through the low-slung government building out to the asphalt behind the Orange County District Attorney’s office, and you’ll end up in another era.

This week, the back parking lot is a veritable stockpile of vintage vehicles – Ford Model Ts and Model As, Volkswagen Buses and Beetles, and dozens of other models – all soon be auctioned by the county’s Public Administrator in Santa Ana.

The office has been tasked with disposing of an estate of a Buena Park plumber who died last summer without an original will or any legally recognized next of kin – an estate that included 69 cars...

In November, Deputy Public Administrator Investigator Brett Williams found 69 vehicles parked in the front, side and backyards of the plumber’s half-acre Buena Park property.

Those vehicles were moved to the Public Administrator’s lot in Santa Ana, where staff have been attempting to identify them and determine their value ever since.

Some are labeled with tags: the “Chevy 3100,” “Chevy 6400” and “Chevy Thriftmaster,” and the “1960 Ford F100,” “1949 Ford convertible,” and the truck with wooden wheels and a crank starter that reads “1918 (?) Ford pickup.”...

Stored outside for decades, none can be driven off the lot. Many were covered in leaves or had their upholstery and wiring systems destroyed by rats. Only a few have keys or title documents. Many, including a Volkswagen camper van of unknown vintage, were last registered in the 1980s, according to the most recent stickers on their license plates.

In addition to full vehicles, there are also parts – some valuable, some not. There are piles of tires, a truck bed loaded with rusted Ford flathead V8 engines and a frame for a 1900s Ford pickup, as well as hubcaps, headlights, radiators, tailgates and gas cans...

Little is known about the man who owned the vehicles.

Gerald Willits was 76 and resided in Buena Park when he died Aug. 14, 2014, of severe four-vessel coronary artery disease, according to the Orange County Coroner’s office.

It’s likely he worked in the plumbing business, according to some of the signage and advertising printed on the sides of some his trucks. He has a daughter, but she lives in another state.

“We don’t know who’s going to get this in the end. There will be some issues because we can’t find an original will,” Henderson said."

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/cars-...ion-public.html

Photos are hard to find just yet but here's on example: