When an ordinary car— say, a ’94 Camry— shows up in a high-turnover self-service junkyard, most of its parts will still be present when it goes to the scrapper. However, when a seldom-seen-in-junkyards vehicle with an avid following— say, a ’71 Toyota Land Cruiser— appears on the yard, it gets eaten like a roadkill raccoon in vulture country. When I saw this complete and rust-free 1973 Datsun 240Z at my local self-serve yard a few weeks ago, I knew it hadn’t been exposed to parts shoppers for long. Sure enough, look at it now!
It’s good to see that many of the parts from this car will live on in other Zs.
Poor flat-top Hitachi SU carburetors. Nobody wants them. Likewise, L24 engines of unknown condition.
Nearly all the glass and most of the removable-without-metal-cutting bodywork got yanked. A bonus with shooting photos in this junkyard is that the Rocky Mountains appear in the background in many of my shots.
Still a few things left, but this car will be a totally bare shell when it gets eaten by The Crusher, a month from now.
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I’m willing to bet this was the work of a single individual who is planning on reselling the parts.
He should have hit the Bertone next to it too. It’s pretty much untouched, and still has much of it’s Bertone-only parts. Somebody took the wheels, it looks like.
I’m also curious about the Celica Supra next to it…
What a shame, that car looked to be in very salvageable condition.
In my experience the rear wheel arches are the most rust prone area of the chassis and those look pretty damn good.
Just what I was thinking. Even a good roller can bring a nice price now.
It’s the circle of life, man…(snif!)
Not all scraypards let people buy cars outright, usually so the buyer doesn’t sue them a week later.
I had an original 240Z purchased new. What a wonderful machine. Thanks for the memories.
However, whoever put what appears to be a vinyl roof on that car should be sentenced to listen to rap music until they die.
My old next-door neighbor when I was growing up has (I’m 100% sure he still has it) a ’73 240Z with the flat-top Hitachi carbs. He spent a lot of time getting them sorted out — and I remember him saying to me once “I could just get the carbs off a ’71 or ’72 and be done with it, but there’s just something about getting something nobody thinks can work right to work right that’s satisfying.”
I think the designer of the Aztec had the same motto.
One of the first things I did to my 1975 MG was to retrofit a ’73 SU set. SU carbs are tinker-able enough to satisfy me, I personally don’t need the added fun of a ZS that is known to dribble raw fuel on to the exhaust manifold.
This reminds me, it’s been a couple years since I filled the dashpots. I should check them.
I really like the stacked exhaust outlets on these cars.
That’s an aftermarket Ansa or Monza exhaust system. OEM was a single outlet with a baloney cut stainless steel trimpiece on it.
I’ve seen a 71 Malibu picked clean in two hours at a self serve yard. They used to have all you can carry sales for 50 bucks. Guys would tie a trunk lid on their backs with seat belts and their buddies would load them up like a rented mule. All good fun until someone crushes a disc or two…
I’m Shocked nobody bought the whole kit. Don’t see horrible rust or even frame damage..
Looks like the B-piilar isn’t structural. A true “Hard top”
That 240Z should NEVER have wound up at a wrecking yard. No obvious rust, no accident damage and straight bumpers? Everything else is just minor aesthetic adjustments: removing the what-were-they-thinking vinyl top and swapping in a 5 speed. I wish you had done some sleuthing, found a document in the car with the owner’s name and called them: “Hello, I’m a man with a woman’s name who’s doing a piece on people who scrap perfectly good classic cars…” so I could know what drives people to do such oddball things.
Is that a Saab 900 or 9-3 in the background.
I watched the same thing happen to a rare ’88 BMW 325ix at the self-serve yard near my house. I saw it the day or the day after it first came on the yard and it was completely intact. A few days later I went back for the steering wheel and everything unique about it had been taken, including said steering wheel. It never should have gone to the wreckers, it was straight, rust-free, and only had 251k miles on it.
On the other hand, a month earlier a super-rare 1980 Triumph TR7 Spider FI convertible came into the yard and was crushed with all parts intact except the shift knob and the steering wheel, which I got.
I think the reason some of these cars end up where they do is because of lost titles– some of these yards will take cars without titles and it’s easier just to dispose of it that way rather than applying for a duplicate title, proving ownership, etc., and then selling it.
This one was an automatic 240Z, plus it had an aftermarket vinyl top and sunroof. That’s why it was more then likely scrapped. Regardless, it’s still quite a shame to see an S30 go to the crusher.
I saw a nice one of these on the road yesterday. I was struck by how tiny it was. In my regular height sedan its roof height was even with my eyes.
Marilee , disregard my previous inquiry…..I just saw the ‘After’ pics…….I wonder who got the seats?…..