We saw 104 Junkyard Find vehicles here in 2015 (I did a few dozen Junkyard Treasures posts for Autoweek as well) and among them were some great examples of automotive history and culture.
The oldest Junkyard Find we saw here during 2015 was this ’51 Ford, and the newest was this ’09 Kia Rondo. As for the most interesting ones, I’ve selected my 15 favorite Junkyard Finds from the past year. Here we go, in model-year order.
Click on a vehicle’s photo to jump to that Junkyard Find’s post.
1953 Plymouth Sedan
I spotted this classic Chrysler at one of the bigger Southern California self-service yards while I was looking for Cheech & Chong filming locations last January. Any vehicle with a Chrysler flathead six engine is special in my book.
1960 Dodge D200
Speaking of Chrysler flathead sixes, you could still buy new Dodge pickups equipped with that engine all the way through the 1968 model year. I found this well-worn ’60 in San Jose, California.
1967 Oldsmobile Delta 88
There may be more great songs about Oldsmobiles than for any other automotive make. That, plus the Chappaquiddick Incident provenance for the ’67 full-sized Olds, made this Denver Junkyard Find an important one.
1968 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Coupe
It turns out that three-quarters of TTAC readers polled say they approve of Ralph Nader, and so it seemed appropriate to include one of the last Corvairs ever built— a second-to-last-year-of-production Monza spotted in Denver last fall— on this list.
1968 Saab 95 Station Wagon
Just a few rows away from the Corvair at the same yard, this four-stroke Swede didn’t have any serious rust but wasn’t deemed valuable enough by its final owner to keep alive.
1972 Volvo 145 Station Wagon
Volvo fanatics say that every 140 is worth huge sums, but they show up in these yards frequently enough to indicate that many Volvo fanatics may have a less-than-firm grip on car-value reality. This car came with maps, registration information, and other ephemera indicating that it was well-loved for decades by its last owner.
In fact, I was able to use the address on the registration to find a satellite photo of this Volvo at its former San Francisco Bay Area address, thanks to Google Earth.
1976 Dodge Colt Carousel
The Colt Carousel was a slightly sporty version of Chrysler’s rebadged Mitsubishi, complete with denim seat inserts and red-white-and-blue tape stripes. This example, spotted in Northern California, got thoroughly nuked by decades of Golden State sunshine.
1977 Ford LTD II Station Wagon
The LTD II was a midsize car based on the Torino, while the LTD was a completely different car on the full-size Ford platform. This San Francisco Bay Area first-year LTD II wagon had suffered from a bit of an engine fire but still had plenty of green-on-green-on-yet-more-green vinyl interior to show off.
1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon Fastback Brougham Sedan
The name of this Detroit classic, photographed in Oakland, tells the whole story.
1980 Volkswagen Dasher Diesel Four-Door Hatchback
The VW Dasher — also known as the Passat, Audi 80, and Audi Fox — didn’t sell well in the United States (Japanese competitors were cheaper and fell apart more slowly) and it’s an exceedingly rare sight in self-serve wrecking yards these days. Here’s a lichen-encrusted California example with just 87,377 miles on the clock.
1983 Toyota Cressida Station Wagon
With San Francisco neighborhood parking permits stretching back to 1994 plastering the hatch and plenty of hopeless attempts to fix ocean-spray-induced rust with body filler, I felt compelled to shoot about three times the usual number of photos for this Junkyard Find.
1987 Cadillac Sedan de Ville
The yellowest interior in automotive history.
1988 Cadillac Allanté
Ah, the Allanté. When new, it cost about the same as a Mercedes-Benz 300SEL, and GM had to fly the bodies from the Pininfarina shop in Italy to Hamtramck, Michigan, in custom-fitted 747s. I spotted this one in Denver, and TTAC’s own Aaron Cole pulled the cool-looking tubular intake for use as garage art, when we shopped at the All You Can Carry For $59.99 Sale at our local self-service yard.
1989 Oldsmobile 98 Regency
Every junkyard car has a story to tell, and the narrative offered by this star-spangled Olds offers more than the normal quantity of plot twists and turns. Was it a Fred Thompson campaign vehicle? Driven by Border Patrol activists? The American-flag paint-and-decal job looked both professional and around the same age as the car, so this car offered much fuel for speculation.
1997 Lexus LS 400 Coach Edition
Complete with sad wind-up toy crab creeping through the Denver slush.
Is there some sort of “junkyard database” where I can find the year, make and model of any junker?
I personally prefer to look forward to new cars and new technology.
There’s stuff like Classic Car Database.
I think there should be a JUNKYARD DATABASE – specifically shared by junkyards…to list parts for sale and wrecks…or cars that are in restorable condition.
It wouldn’t be worth their time.
Row52.com covers most self service yards in the country
Norway has one, if it peeks your interest:
http://www.nbfbildeler.no/
On the start page, you can enter your car’s license plate number, and you will automatically be redirected to your car’s make, model and engine for parts. It’s also possible to browse it manually.
The 72 Volvo with the documentation seems to be in the chase for best find. The history found and the care given is something special.
That ’67 Olds Delta 88 is the exact same color (unfaded) as a ’67 Cutlass I owned in 1974; 330 2bbl, 2-spd auto… it was surprisingly smooth and quick IIRC.
Thanks for the memory-jar.
Speaking of “memory-jar”:
My piano teacher had that exact Delta 88. All piano teachers badly need sex and she sat closely along side me.
How can you play Czerny exercises with those boobs straining to be free and always in your peripheral vision?!
Your life always sounds almost like the kid from The Christmas Story.
Dude, you can’t know how HOT a repressed, unmarried, early-middle-aged 1960’s woman with Barbara Streisand hair and mildly horned-rimmed glasses could be.
I’m sure the pheromones in that room took a toll on her baby Baldwin’s finish.
LOL
Oh lordy.
O_O
Sounds like you were the one in need..
LOL, it occurs to me that I manpainted that memory.
No, boypainted.
“My piano teacher had that exact Delta 88. All piano teachers badly need sex and she sat closely along side me.”
I read this to be: “The unused center seat belt buckle scraped my butt as I surreptitiously slid closer to my piano teacher’s side, so I could espy those marvelous “middle C” cups that she was sporting…”
No Crabspirits here…
Christ, no, I never got her in a car; I was 13. She sat close to the piano bench.
I was too young, dumb and Catholic to know you could do anything but suffer until free to masturbate. In a room where there was invariably a Jesus picture. Frickin’ voyeur.
“…invariably a Jesus picture…”
It gave me a sense of real discomfort once, when I woke up in a Catholic woman’s bed, and His eyes were looking at me, while she was downstairs making breakfast (happily humming to herself).
I had a strong sense that I was going to be rocketed to Hell at any moment.
Ah, the power of weaponized guilt! If you can let a gloriously healthy and happy moment like the one you describe be ruined by a Jesus picture, you might be a Catholic.
It seems, though, that the happy, humming lady in the kitchen had developed an immunity and probably kept the trappings around only for cozy familiarity.
This brings back my Catechism classes. I’d edit the text were I running one today:
Who made me?
> Spaghetti Monster made me.
Why did Spaghetti Monster make me?
> Spaghetti Monster made me to f*uck like a monkey until I die.
Yes, I was raised Catholic – a useful way to keep the kids out of trouble (like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus) until they start asking vexing questions – then you break out the Flying Spaghetti Monster and hope they grasp the concept of innate human morality.
I wrote stories on two of these!
You did! I dig the Allante story. Crabspirits’ LS story is also tremendous.
I liked that LS one too, made me laugh.
Oh I forgot about your 87 Deville story. That was your best.
It’s easier to write when you know exactly how the car in question feels and works!
That yellow Caddy interior needs to be rescued. And no, I am not volunteering.
Junkyard Finds is my FAVE part of TTAC. It gives me a chance to reflect on the past…both good and bad. Thank you for having it!
I think I need to look back at some previous posts, I didn’t know so many older cars were found.
This is my favorite one that I found
http://phxjunkyarding.blogspot.com/2015/06/1961-chevrolet-corvair-van.html