We receive a lot of tips here at Autoblog. Some implore us to check out camera shots of an Audi R8 spotted in Santa Monica, others relay breaking news in the industry, and still more are just personal rants about the state of all things four-wheeled. And then there are the tips we get about the Great Portuguese Barn Find.

Hundreds of tips about this amazing discovery have been pouring in for months. They all have in common the story of a New Yorker's retirement gift to himself – a house on a few acres in Portugal. The house he found had been vacant for 15 years, the owners having passed away leaving no heirs. The property was being sold to pay back taxes owed, and besides the house, there was also a large metal barn on the land with its doors welded shut. Nobody took the time to see what was inside, so the property was sold as is. When the new owner and his wife arrived, they got to work opening up the barn and found - the barn find of the millennium. Inside the structure sat around 200 dusty classic cars. What an unbelievable bit of luck for the new owner!

Follow the jump for the real story.

[Source: Old Cars Weekly]

And we do mean unbelievable. Of course the whole thing was a net hoax, but some people still want to believe it is true, and so the story continues to circulate. After all, there's a whole gallery of dusty classics sitting in a dark warehouse that's pretty compelling. How could it be a lie?

Old Cars Weekly just tracked down the story behind the story, and the real explanation is almost as good as the hoax. What we are actually seeing in those pictures is the collection of an automobile dealer who over the years has added many vehicles that caught his fancy. He just drove them to the barn and parked them there, presumably waiting until he decided what to do with the lot of them next. About a year ago he sent in a photographer to document the collection, and those pics are the ones circulating the internet, helping to create and sustain this myth. So now you know the truth behind the Great Portugal Barn Find, and you all can stop sending us tips to cover it. Okay?

Since I put up these pictures here at the beginning of February 2007, the story of the Portugese barn full of classic and not-so-classic cars seems to have taken on a life of its own. The interwebs have been abuzz with theories and somebody has even gone to the trouble of making up a story about it. Classic car lovers, treasure hunters and auction houses have all somehow contacted intuh.net in an effort to find out more. In order to stem the flow of e-mails and even telephone calls: here's all I know.

At the end of January 2007, I stumbled upon a Portugese web forum with a thread that contained a large number of pictures of old cars left in a barn, somewhere in Portugal. The picture files themselves were hosted on the web site of a Portugese classic car dealer, but were taken down after only a few days. I thought it would be a shame not to have them online, so I rescued them from my browser cache and put them up here, on intuh.net.

For all those who have been eagerly sending round e-mails about 'a New York man' having bought 'a piece of land in Portugal' for 'next to nothing', that happened to have this treasure-filled barn on it: I'm pretty much convinced that's an urban myth.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

Manuel Menezes Morais shot the photos, but he was sworn to secrecy about the cars’ location and the owner’s name. However, he was able to obtain permission from the elusive owner to give me the following information:

The owner of the cars was a car dealer in the 1970s and 1980s, and decided to save the more interesting cars that came through his doors. When the barn was full, he padlocked and “soldered” the doors shut. (Perhaps welding was too permanent.)

Web sites varied on the number of cars: 58, 100, and 180 were speculated. According to Morais, there are 180 cars in the barn.

And, aw shucks, none of the cars is for sale.

Clara was able to determine that the cars are located somewhere in the area of Sintra, near Lisbon.
I asked Morais if he could ask the owner if he had a favorite car. “He has lots of good cars in very good condition,” he says, “but he loves the Lancia Aurelia B24. He has two.”