Couple's leisurely stroll on beach turns into incredible car find deep in the sand

A first wedding anniversary doesn’t usually involve shovels.

But on a stretch of beach in Queensland, a couple’s stroll turned into a full-blown dig.

What started as a jagged piece of rust in the surf grew into something impossible to ignore.

And by the time they were done, the beach had coughed up a car lost for nearly a century.

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So what exactly did they uncover in the sand?

Australian couple Kylah and Tim Chapman weren’t looking for history that day – just a quiet walk along Coonarr Beach in Queensland to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. 

Instead, they spotted something odd in the sand: a shard of rust sticking out like it didn’t belong. 

Most people would’ve stepped over it. 

But not this couple, they started digging.

The Chapmans are treasure hunters at heart. 

Fossicking is actually a hobby that fills their weekends. 

So they raced home for their tools and came back ready to dig deeper. 

What they found didn’t stop at a rusty plate. 

The outline of a full car was waiting under the sand.

As word spread among curious onlookers, an older couple wandered by. 

The man studied the engine layout, saw the eight spark plugs jutting forward, and guessed it could be pre-WWII. 

Later, historian John Anderson from Hervey Bay Historical Village backed that up.

 Looking at the photos, he pegged it as a 1930s Austin. 

The mudguards, the bumper bar with space for a crank handle – all classic cues of the era.

What started as a casual stroll had morphed into an anniversary spent digging out a relic nearly a century old. 

The Chapmans couldn’t believe it. 

A car that had been hidden since before the war.

This isn’t the first beach car find

The Chapmans’ buried Austin isn’t the first time a car’s turned up somewhere it shouldn’t.

Earlier this year, a decaying car surfaced on another beach, leaving Redditors baffled. 

Photos showed a rusted-out husk half-swallowed by sand, and the online guessing game quickly spiraled into arguments over what model it once was. 

Compared to that, the Queensland find feels less like internet debate and more like uncovering a ghost.

A pre-WWII time capsule that reappeared just long enough for one couple to take photos before the tide claimed it again.

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