Virton residents quickly adapted to the Canadian way of life: an ice-skating rink was built, bars started serving American and Canadian beer and, of course, huge American cars with Canadian Air Force license plates became a common sight. Generally speaking soldiers didn’t ship the cars over from Canada, they purchased them directly from independent American car dealerships who went through the hassle of importing them from the other side of the Atlantic.

The shop in Chatillon was one of a handful of dealers that specialized in selling and fixing American cars. A neighbor who is well into his 80s today told me the garage opened up in the early 1950s and gradually began to sell and repair American cars when the Canadians arrived. It became particularly successful over the second half of the 1950s because it was relatively close to Virton, especially for Canadians who were used to driving long distances, because the owner had learned how to speak English in order to better communicate with his customers and because he knew American cars far better than anyone else in the region. Parts proved to be a little problematic to find so cars that were wrecked or deemed too old to repair by their owners were usually saved. A collection had begun.

French President Charles de Gaulle was worried that NATO would make France and the rest of Western Europe dependent on the United States and Canada for defense. In 1965 he publicly announced plans to pull out of NATO, and on March 11, 1966, he went to the American embassy in Paris to announce France’s resignation from the group, asking all NATO forces to leave the country as soon as possible.

Most Canadian soldiers stationed in Marville were transferred to an RCAF base in Lahr, Germany, and the Canadians had all but left Virton by the spring of 1967. Local army officials asked the owner of the shop to consider moving to Lahr with them because they didn’t think they could find a good mechanic on location. The owner considered the proposition, but his son was still in school so he decided to stay in Chatillon. Without a steady diet of American cars to fix, he shifted the focus of his shop to European cars.

It was easier to find parts for, say, a Fiat 600 than a Chevrolet Biscayne, but the mechanic continued hanging on to cars, and at one point there were nearly 400 run-down cars scattered across Chatillon. The clearing in the forest was full of them, the land around the repair shop was full, there was a small plot of land located next to a farm about 500 yards away from the forest that was chock-full, and the last batch was stored next to a garage on the opposite end of town. The owner began winding down his business as he got older but he never fully retired. The cars that were new in the 1950s were now classics so his collection began to attract enthusiasts from Belgium and from a handful of neighboring countries. The shop was still opened when he died approximately eight years ago.

Killing the graveyard

I briefly caught up with the owner’s son in a bid to get his side of the story. He wasn’t terribly interested in helping me piece together the story of the cars in the clearing but it’s hard to blame him, people have been bugging him about them on a regular basis for nearly a decade now. Although I wasn’t able to convince him I wasn’t yet another paparazzi hoping to score a free split-window Volkswagen Bus carcass, he agreed to provide some insight into what’s happened over the past few years.

After his father died the cars sat essentially un-touched, he wasn’t a mechanic and he had no interest in taking over the business. The world didn’t know about them yet, the clearing was little more than an overgrown regional junkyard, but everything changed when a Flemish TV station got word of the cars and went out to film a documentary about them in which the host disclosed their exact location. The owner’s son was quick to point out that the documentary wasn’t authorized, his family didn’t find out about it until it after it aired, and he never received a dime in compensation. Almost immediately after the documentary aired throngs of enthusiasts and photographers drove out from all over Belgium to see the cars in person. Pictures were posted on various sites and forums, and all of the sudden people from all over Europe were lining up in a tiny village that’s barely on the map to get a glimpse of the cars into the clearing. What was once essentially a private collection gradually snowballed into a world-famous tourist attraction.

The owner’s son initially tolerated car-savvy photographers treading lightly and taking a few pictures, but things quickly got out of hand and he frequently had to kick groups of over 15 individuals out of the woods. Collectors trekked out to Chatillon in the middle of the night to steal parts, and people went to the clearing to party, leaving litter on the ground and in neighboring fields. The small house next to the repair shop was broken into more than a few times, too. A city official who asked to remain anonymous told us there was another, perhaps more insurmountable issue to deal with: the owner’s son was the mayor's assistant on environmental matters and his opponents used the cars against him. How can you be credible as a environment-focused politician when you own an open-air junkyard with over 200 cars? The clearing that the cars were parked on was classified as farm land so the junkyard was illegal. The owner’s son’s political opponents took advantage of the zoning issue to take the matter to court and won. Faced with the prospect of getting fined by the region of Wallonia, he decided not to appeal the lawsuit and instead get rid of all of the cars and move on.

An old Mercedes-Benz Unimog fitted with a snow plow was used to push the cars out of the forest. They were all crushed, though the owner’s son first invited a few of his father’s good friends and long-time customers to pick out any parts they needed and buy anything that was salvageable, either for parts or for restoration. The whole process took about two weeks. The owner died about eight years ago, as mentioned above, and the cars have been gone for roughly five so the graveyard didn’t stay abandoned for very long.

The legacy of the Chatillon cars

A vast majority of the Chatillon residents I talked to said the cars didn’t bother them in the slightest, though a few said they weren’t too happy about the people that showed up to see them six or seven years ago. Residents of all ages unanimously said they’ve forgotten about the cars, except for the few that still have to tell strangers “nope, they’re gone, you came out here for nothing.” It’s life as usual in Chatillon.

There are still some signs of the Canadian presence in the area. Notably, there’s a huge totem in downtown Virton that the RCAF gave to city officials before they left in 1967 to thank them for their hospitality. A few of the cars driven by soldiers during the 1950s and the 1960s are still around today, it’s not uncommon to see classic Pontiacs and Lincolns in the area. The Marville army base has been abandoned on and off since France left NATO. Currently, many of the buildings are unoccupied, though a few businesses have set up shop there and – contrary to what city officials like to admit – a handful of families have transformed old army buildings into houses and actually live on the base. Overall it’s turned into a rather decrepit and depressing place, the French version of the Hills Have Eyes could be filmed there.

The owner of the shop wasn’t the only Chatillon resident who liked hanging on to old cars, and there’s an abandoned early-1990s Renault Super 5 in a field not too far from the forest. I consider it a consolation prize for those who take a trip out to Belgium to admire 200 classics and find nothing but tires, rims and pine needles.