Scrap-steel prices have been climbing like crazy in recent months, with the scrap price for junk cars reaching about $250/ton here in Colorado. That means that a lot of potential project cars that have spent decades in back yards and driveways, waiting to get back on the road, are now worth an easy 400 bucks at The Crusher. Armies of steel-crazed scavengers with car trailers and flatbed trucks have been scouring the countryside for unwanted— or, more accurately, insufficiently wanted— vehicles to turn into quick cash. I hit a local metal-recycling yard yesterday to see the frenzy for myself. Read More >

While I believe that GM has built only one Detroit-designed subcompact car in its history (the Chevrolet Vega), the case could be made that the Chevette and its Pontiac siblings— though designed in Germany— were also “authentic” Detroit machines. The shocking thing about the Chevette was how far into the 1980s its North American run continued; you could buy a new Chevy Chevette or Pontiac 1000 all the way up to the 1987 model year! Read More >

How cool does a junkyard car have to be before we acknowledge that it’s just too far gone to return to street duty? A first-year Edsel wagon? Very, very cool. This one, however, appears to have been baking/freezing in a Great Plains field for a few decades, and there isn’t a whole lot of Edsel-ness left. Still, such cars allow us to contemplate Ford’s Edsel Nightmare. Read More >

As I write this, I’m sitting on the floor of the bag-claim area at the Houston airport, waiting for my LeMons accomplices to arrive from California, with Pantera cranking in my headphones in order to get myself in the proper Texas frame of mind. Yes, races on consecutive weekends; it’s like being in a traveling rock-n-roll band, only with the smell of burning brakes/engines/wiring instead of groupies and limos. With low-budget racing in mind, let’s contemplate a battered little racer that won’t be seeing a track, ever again. Read More >

Just so nobody thinks they might be able to rescue this poor abused Ford, The Crusher ate it up a couple months back. Read More >

The turnover of inventory at self-service junkyards near major West Coast ports is extremely quick, what with the hunger of Chinese industry for scrap steel; some yards keep vehicles for just a month or two before crushing them. This steel-company-owned yard in Oakland, California, gets some interesting machinery, but a Lancia Beta? I can’t recall the last time I saw a Beta in any condition, but Volvo parts hunter David ran across this ’78 while seeking parts for his 240. Read More >

Most of the time, you don’t find much in the way of usable parts on a vehicle that went up in flames, but that doesn’t stop wrecking yards from making a go at selling a few parts before the Crusher eats the burn victim. Here’s a Vietnam Era military Jeep truck that may have a few salvageable bits and pieces. Read More >

The Cougar name has been slapped on so many different Mercurized (Mercurated?) Fords that it gets hard to keep them straight. I never much cared for the over-gingerbreaded Mustang-based version, but the big Thunderbird-based late-70s Cougar seems properly Mercurial. Read More >

Ah, designer-edition cars! The Malaise Era Cartier and Givenchy Lincolns! The Oleg Cassini AMC Matador! The Mark Cross New Yorker! By the early 1990s, you couldn’t get quite the variety of designer-edition cars that we saw in decades past, but Volkswagen wasn’t done yet! Read More >

Yes, there’s a place where you’ll see AMC Eagles on a regular basis; there are several parked on the street in my Denver neighborhood, and you see even more when you go into the mountains. Even the ahead-of-its-time Eagle can’t last forever, however, and this one has begun its journey back to the steel mill. Read More >

Some of you may be more familiar with this friend of the catering and drinking-water industries in its Chevrolet Step-Van guise, but I’ve always preferred GMC’s name: Value Van! I ran across this fairly complete example in my local self-service wrecking yard, quite close to the Simu-Wood™ LeBaron Town & Country wagon. Me and the Value Van, we have a history! Read More >

Thick faux-wood trim on a Chrysler wagon as late as 1986? Hey, it’s 2011 and you can still get Super 8 movie film! Read More >

American-made overhead-cam engines were almost as rare as reliable South Vietnamese presidents in the mid-1960s, so I did a doubletake when I spotted one in a Denver self-service wrecking yard. Read More >

Public Enemy’s 1987 ode to the Olds 98, “You’re Gonna Get Yours,” has long been one of my all-time favorite car anthems, and I’ve always pictured Chuck D’s 98 as a mint-green example of the late-70s iteration of Oldsmobile’s top-of-the-line big car. Then I’m at the junkyard and… here’s Chuck’s car! Read More >

The pickup-truck version of the Volkswagen Rabbit might seem like a terrible idea nowadays, but these things actually turned out to be pretty useful in the real world. You couldn’t haul 1,500 pounds of hog entrails in one, but you couldn’t do that in a Luv, Courier, or 620 either. Read More >