There’s a reason so many country songs are written about pickup trucks: for generations they’ve been more than transportation. They’re farm tools, teenage freedom machines, tailgate hangouts, and for a lot of Midwest kids, a rite of passage. That love of trucks is exactly what built one of the largest privately assembled collections in the country, and it’s about to head to auction in Redwood Falls, Minnesota.
The collection belongs to Tim Wertish, who grew up around cars and trucks thanks to his father’s car lot in Redwood Falls. Tim started buying and selling vehicles himself while still in high school, and later built a career flipping classics and racing modifieds. Years ago he ran a simple classified ad in a local shopper looking for old trucks and cars, and the phone never stopped ringing. What started as a side hobby, which Tim called “Vintage Vehicle Rescue,” grew into a sprawling stable of nearly 400 classic trucks, pickups, and cars lined up on the south edge of town.
The lineup leans heavily toward trucks, with rows of Cab-Over rigs, long runs of Chevrolet and GMC trucks, and Ford pickups spanning the late 1940s through the 1950s, plus tow trucks, fire trucks, and grain trucks. There are cars mixed in too, including some genuinely rare iron: a 1966 Hemi Charger, a 1967 Plymouth GTX, a 1968 Camaro, and a handful of Impalas. Auctioneer Yvette VanDerBrink of VanDerBrink Auctions, who has handled classic vehicle sales for more than 25 years, says she’s never seen a private collection organized quite like this one.
Now that the real estate under the collection has sold, everything has to go. VanDerBrink Auctions will sell the entire lineup over two days at the site in Redwood Falls. Friday, September 25, 2026 opens with a preview starting at 9:30 a.m., followed by a first round of bidding at 3 p.m. covering roughly 70 vehicles, parts, and automotive art. The main event follows Saturday, September 26, 2026, starting at 9:30 a.m., when close to 300 additional classics cross the block, live onsite with online bidding available for remote buyers.
One quirk of this sale worth noting for builders and rodders: on several of the Cab-Over trucks and grain trucks, winning bidders who only want the cab can take just that and leave the frame behind, making it easier to build a car hauler, rat rod, or restoration project without hauling home a full chassis. Whether the goal is a numbers-matching restoration or a shop-built cruiser, the Redwood County sale is shaping up as one of the bigger opportunities for truck and car collectors this fall. More details, plus the catalog, photos, and videos, are available at vanderbrinkauctions.com.
Shawn Henry 
Eve Nowell