Five car graveyards that will get you all goosebumpy

Do you ever stop and think about where old cars end up?

They're a bit like mobile phones. You pass it on to someone who says they're going to take care of it and once it's out of your hands, that's it. You might even keep a few photos if you were really attached to it, but otherwise it's not your problem anymore.

But stop and think about this for a second. The thing you just palmed off somewhere else is a huge chunk of metal, fabric, and (if it's your first car) the abstract concept of independence. That's not exactly an easy thing to get rid of.

Sometimes they're dismantled, sometimes they're turned into little cubes (at least that's what movies and cartoons have taught me), and sometimes they end up rotting in the middle of nowhere. All forgetten, alongside other poor, unloved hunks of rust, slowly being swamped by weeds.

And where there's a monument to nature socking one to humanity, the urban explorers of the internet are bound to be there snapping photos so the rest of us (who are either too unfit or terrified to go there ourselves) can look at them from the comfort of our mobile phones.

Here are a few of the coolest from around the world that are 100%, completely, absolutely, definitely not haunted. Probably.

Chatillon Car Graveyard

We'll start with one you've probably seen around the internet before. Because we internet listicle writers have to warm you up somehow. Chances are you're familiar with this photograph by Roseanne de Lange.

The rusty traffic jam in the middle of the woods always pops up in ruin porn lists, and for good reason. It's like someone physically manifested a visual representation of the cliché 'hauntingly beautiful'.

The images are usually accompanied by a quote about how nature will take the world back from humanity (generally misattributed to someone like Charles Darwin or David Attenbrough or Dr. Ian Malcolm).

If you're planning a trip to take your own 'hauntingly beautiful' photos maybe take this place off your list.

But where is this famous graveyard, and how did it get so famous?

The pictures you've been seeing are of a car graveyard outside the village of Chatillon in Belgium. A town so small that the only way to see it on Street View is via the main road running through the town.

That being said, if you're planning a trip to take your own 'hauntingly beautiful' photos maybe take this place off your list because the graveyard itself doesn't actually exist anymore.

What's more, the cars were removed partly as a result of their fame. The more people who found out about the graveyard, the more tourists showed up in Chatillon to take pictures and explore the traffic jam in the middle of the woods.

Take the general littering and destruction caused by regular tourism and add collectors and enthusiasts who would come to the graveyard for a little automotive tomb raiding, stealing parts for their own projects, and the Chatillon car graveyard was causing more problems than it was worth.

The owner of the land where the graveyard sat made the decision to get rid of it and so the cars were removed and disposed of.

This is the abridged version, if you want to get the full history of the Chatillon car graveyard (plus a whole bunch of cool before and after photos) you should check out this story by Ronan Glon.

Mojave Ambulance Graveyard

Picture driving through the middle of the Mojave desert.

It's hot, flat, and lonely. And it also has a little bit of a The Hills Have Eyes vibe to it if I'm being honest. Now imagine stumbling across this; decades worth of ambulances left abandoned in the middle of nowhere.

Graveyards like this aren't that uncommon, especially in arid climates where it's harder for things to rust.

The ambulance graveyard in the Mojave walks a fine line between being an lost piece of important ambulance history, and a terrifying soon-to-be Area 51-related murder scene.

The thing is, graveyards like this aren't that uncommon, especially in arid climates where it's harder for things to rust.

Interestingly, the Mojave Desert also holds a massive aircraft boneyard too, which, like the Chatillon graveyard, you've probably seen or heard of thanks to its popularity with explorers. And GTA: San Andreas.

So if you decide to take the great American road trip, keep an eye out. You might just find something cool.

Or dust ghosts.

Horncliffe Mansion

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the Horncliffe Mansion is just a movie set or haunted house attraction and not a real place. I mean, just look at the damn thing.

Built in 1869 and sitting north of Manchester in Lancashire, Horncliffe mansion has swapped owners a few times, serving as a house a hotel, a wedding venue and most recently, abandoned husk and almost-rave venue.

Because who doesn't want to rave in a decaying building that's almost certainly home to the ghosts of Victorian children. Who, presumably, just want you to play with them. "Forever, and everrr."

Seriously, look at it. It's so OBVIOUSLY haunted. Actually, come to think of it, it looks so haunted that it's probably not haunted because any ghost would take one look at it and think "Eh... it's a bit much"

The thing is, Horncliffe Mansion is haunted, in a way.

But it's not haunted by vampires or demons, or the aforementioned ghost children.

Nope, it's haunted by Jaguars.

The estate is also known colloquially as the "Jag mansion" because right alongside the house is a collection of sports cars left rotting in a field.

The site has become a favourite of urban explorers with plenty of blogs featuring full image libraries of the ghostly car yard.

It's unclear if the cars were being restored or if they were just ditched there and left to rot.

The inhabitants of Horncliffe Mansion aren't all Jaguars, with other classic British cars like Triumphs and Minis, but for the most part it's a sea of big cats.

It's unclear if the cars were being restored or if they were just ditched there and left to rot.

On top of that, it seems that you can't get a clear answer as to whether or not the Jags come as part of the house, or if the section of the mansion they're in is actually even a part of the house at all.

Spooky.

If you fancy looking at more pictures you can check out the 'For Sale' page.

It's been removed from the market so you can't buy it. But after seeing some of these pictures you may not want to.

Michael Frolich's Million Dollar Car Graveyard

Including this one sort of feels like cheating, because unlike the other entries on this list, this graveyard isn't so much a gradual build-up of automotive decay as it is a very specific creation.

Michael Frolich, a German artist and former racing driver, wanted to explore the idea of nature overtaking humanity.

So he acquired a plot of forest, filled it up with classic cars and just kind of... left it.

Well, that's not entirely true, according to this article from Top Gear, he also smeared things like yoghurt on the cars so the bacteria would help them decay quicker.

There are some weird and wonderful things living in the installation.

The work, as you can probably guess, is a bit... uh... divisive.

Car graveyards can be really interesting cross sections of automotive history, but when you've bought a Rolls Royce for the sole purpose of leaving it in a forest to be swallowed by nature, well... some people will take umbridge with that.

That being said, there are some weird and wonderful things living in the installation.

One of the most interesting are two cars from before the fall of the Berlin wall. Frolich actually has chunks of the Berlin wall and on either side of it are cars that were common to West and East Germany.

If all of this is sounding interesting, check out this video from Barcroft Cars YouTube channel for a tour: (NOTE: if the details mentioned above sent you into a cold sweat and/or blind rage, maybe give this one a miss)

Flynn's Wrecking Yard

Of course, right here at home in Australia we have our own share of spooky automobile resting places, and most of them pale in comparison to Flynn's Wrecking yard.

Located  in Cooma, NSW, unlike some of the other entries on this list, Flynn's doesn't look so much like a post apocalyptic wasteland or haunted house.

No, Flynn's just looks like a regular old wrecking yard.

Well... an absolutely colossal, regular old wrecking yard.

 The mammoth yard, stretches over multiple paddocks. And while it's not going to make you worried about dodging mutant wasteland cannibals or the vengeful Victorian era ghosts, you will have to watch out for snakes and spiders and, worst of all, prickle bushes.

But, if you can brave all of that then there's some cool stuff to be found at Flynn's Wrecking Yard. This is because it's almost as much of a museum as it is a graveyard.

Flynn's is home to cars from a huge range of makes, models and years, so if you know your cars and you're keen for a walk down memory lane (and about 1000 angry brown snakes) then this is the place for you.

The best part of this is that, unlike most of the other entries on this list that are off-limits thanks to unsafe conditions, shut off from the public by their owners, small armies of marauding ghost mutants, or simply because they don't exist anymore – you can actually visit Flynn's Wrecking Yard and have a bit of an explore.

If you want to get a feel for what the yard is like, you should check out this episode of Classic Car Hunter hosted by Glen Torrens of Street Machine. It's a small tour of a place where, again – if motoring history is your jam, you could probably spend an entire day.

What's the spookiest car graveyard you've ever seen? Tell us about it in the comments below.