What's the coolest old car you've seen in a junkyard?

it's still fun to climb into old hoopties and make vroom vroom noises

 

I know.

 

I call it spittin' on the windshield...

 

I found one of each of those in a yard near here that's now gone. That guy had some neat stuff -a '59 Pontiac ambulance, a '60 Olds wagon, and I saved a '58 Chevy Sedan Delivery - plus sold the tops off both of those Safaris - out of there. I should have bought the nice, solid '57 Buick Special 2dr post, though.

 

I knew that yard , out by the speedway it was. Whole yard gone now --- I got about 8 sets of Buick aluminum drums out of there about 5 -6 years ago-- then in about 2 days the whole place was a vacant field! A lot of nice stuff gone --PPPFFHHT!

 

I dunno, saw a 1953 Crosley wagon headed for the Crusher at Apachie Auto in Ft Worth back in 1984............... scrubba

 

Never really Found anything but back in the early 70's I did contribute my 69 big block Camaro to one. Still pains me.

 

I worked at G&L auto parts in El Cajon, California for a few months back in the mid 70s. G&L was known as THE 55-57 chevy junk yard in the San Diego area. Couldn't count the number of old 50s chevies there. When you walked in the front gate, the first car was a primer black 55 nomad with "$500" shoe-polished on the car. I thought it was too much money because it was just a shell with a frame and front clip.
I'm sure some of the guys from Lakeside and El Cajon will remember it.

 

Not in good shape, but the local yard had an optioned-to-the-gills late 50's Desoto convertible. I still remember the dual antennas, one on each fin. That was in the late 80's.

Another yard back then had a very nice 70 Roadrunner, 440-6 Pak. The guy used to go there to buy parts for his project car. One day he pulled up in the RR, got out and tossed his cigarette at the ashtray. It missed, and when he was out in the yard taking off parts the car was on fire in the parking lot. He got disgusted, sold them the car for nothing, and they pushed it in back. other than the burned up dash, it was all there and very, very clean. They sold the engine but we bought the Air Grabber scoop for $50. Later we went back and bought the rest of the hood for another $50. Still have it!

 

i have one of those.

 

i manage a junkyard ih
bought my 50;fleetline out of there sold that one the guy i sold it has it loking god now. right now i have a 40 ford 1 ton and 60 rambler and a few a bodys we keep all the classics no matter the ahape for guys who want oem.

 

Sorry Patrick, I wasn't responding to you. Those pictures are from Sunset, TX at a yard called Browne and Sons. There are more '55-56 Dodges and Plymouths in that yard than I have seen in all other yards combined.

 

Dont know if its coolest. We rebuilt a 396 and m22 muncie with clutch with good performance parts for a dudes chevelle. About a year later I find the whole car in a pick-a-part on beach blvd, been wrecked.
Yea,,,I got the motor and trans out of it....

 

Back in the late 70's my brother came across a Barris built copped & customized 51' Mercury in a junk yard. He tried buying it from the yard owner but he wouldn't sell it. He found out in the late 80's it got crushed! Story goes, the owner of the Merc just got out of the military and purchased the car in California driving it cross county, it broke down(motor blew) in this small town in North Dakota. He sold it to the yard owner and bought another car to finish his trip and sat ever since until it was crushed! It was complete and the yard owner wouldn't sell anything off of it! My brother had pictures somewhere, I remember looking at them. The 51' even had the Barris badges on it! My brother claims he swiped one of the badges off the car but he couldn't remember where he put it!

 

I know where a 56 Chevy Belair ragtop sits in a creek. The car was bought by a farmer in the late sixties and he used the 265 in his grain truck. A guy I know said the top was still good when it was originally parked less engine. Just an old car at that point I guess.

 

Found a 60'Edsel wagon complete. It's at a place called Pulins near Hillsborro, Ohio. Wish I had my camera.

 

In Crane Texas in the middle 80's the U.S. Marshalls office came in and siezed property from local mopar dealer. My wife worked for the district attorney at the time and I Tryed my best to buy cars before they were crushed,but no deal. Kind of hush what was going on but the state crushed a 56 crown vic with a 3x2 caddy motor,numerous 50's 60's cars and though not HAMB friendly 2 orange super birds. All intact. I know the story but will not say on public board . That used to be my favorite place to visit. They crushed well over 100 cars. TP

 

That doesn't make sense, even then they should have been able to auction the cars off for more than the $20 or so they'd have brought for scrap back then. I know, I know a guy who used to buy 55-57 Chevys out of this yard that's now gone... $5, $10, $15 if it was really decent...

 

Long gone now, but in the mid and late 1960's, in a small village called Del Dios, just outside of Escondido, on Lake Hodges, was a junkyard. I used to get something to climb on, and look over the fence...Model A's, coupes, Sedans, Roadsters, Phaetons, a few 32's, 3 windows 5 windows, Sedans, old Harleys, and a lot of off-brand stuff (Moon, Jordan, Kissel, Rockne, etc)
The one I had my eyes on was a Pontiac Safari, this thing was original paint, looked complete, and was nice nice nice..of course, I wouldn't have minded going home with the rest of them, either...

 

34 Ford woodie and a 34 Ford Fordor with the original accessory trunk on it in the early 70's at a yard on a hill by Lake Leelanau, MI

I think I still have some windshield bits from the woodie (pretty far gone then, but would be considered a "barn find" now ...

In the early 70's there was a yard in Farmington, MI that had a bunch of blown (supercharged) Studebakers in it, I got the clutch pedal setup for my 56 Chevy out of a car in that yard.

 

Back in the mid 80's there was a yard around here with a complete '34 Airflow, a bunch of Model A sedans and a '57 Nomad.

It also still had the '57 Golden Fury that my dad, (then17) pulled the 2X4 intake carbs and breathers off of in 1965 to put on his dads brand new Sport Fury. My grandmother helped him put them on while pap was at work one day and neither one said a word to him about it until a couple weeks later when he asked why the car was making so much more noise when he accelerated, lol. I think he had to have the same conversation when one of the cut out caps vibrated off on the way home from church one Sunday. PRICELESS!

There was an old yard about 2 miles from here that was full of cool old stuff till the guy lost it in a law suit and crushed it out almost over night a couple years ago. He had a couple of '49 Merc. 2 doors, 2 '46 Ford 2 doors, 3 '63 Impala Super Sports, '36 Cabover White, and the rusty bones of a '32 sedan roundy rounder. I salvaged the frame firewall cowl and 40 front and rear axle out of the '32 only to have them carted off by scrap thieves.

I never go to Pull a Part without getting my heart broken. I've seen more cool stuff in there than anywhere. Nice '63 suicide door Lincoln, Bricklin (yeah, I know but still), '56 Plymouth Suburban wagon, '65 Riviera, dozens of every body style Corvair, mid 50's Ford & Chevy trucks, sigh!

 

Wasn't in good shape, but I thought this was cool... It's still sitting in a junkyard here in WV. It's a 1950 Ford coupe with an early Cadillac v8 engine. Hotrod or possibly old mooneshine car?

 

Best I've found was a '61 Ford F100 Unibody that had been channeled. Someone put a lot of time into doing it. I talked to the yard owner who bought from the guys who were building it. They got the hard work done and ran out of money. Also I helped a friend of mine get rid of about 200 old cars from his property. He sold quite a few of the old cars but I ended up watching a '59 Edsel and a '59 Old go to scrap. Oh well I managed to save a fully loaded 1961 Mercury Monterey. Factory air, power steering, power brakes, 390 3-speed car.

 

Some other stuff I've seen in yards over the years -

One place had a '55 Pontiac hearse turned construction company hauler with a pipe/ladder rack welded to the roof. Nearby, a wrecked Henry J - with a Flathead Ford V8 in it. Up in the corner? A '57 Hudson coupe - they only made like 300 of those that year.

Another yard I was in had a complete '51 Merc coupe up to about five years ago. Scrapped out now. Had a whole pile of Hemi motors out of cars, and a '58 New Yorker that should have had a 392 in it.


Another yard way in the back was a '57 Special wagon that looked like you could drive it away - but the damn trees were literally six feet thick and it would have been easier to go out the back and across the neighbor's field than make a trail to the front.

Still another yard there was a very very rough '57 or '58 Plymouth 2dr hardtop under some berry bushes. Falling off the sides was some gold anodized trim inserts - it was years later I realized I'd been looking at a Fury.

We hit a big yard being crushed out near Middletown and there were dozens of convertibles... I opened the hoods of three different '59 Pontiac convertibles. Two still had the tri-power, one it had recently dissapeared. There was a '60 DeSoto hardtop shell and a '57 Packard wagon. Really should have spent more time and money in there, some of the cars were just incredible. One T-bird ragtop had a 2 foot thick tree growing up through the right rear footwell. Got a one of 500 or so '58 DeSoto ragtop out of there. One '55 Chevy had been a custom with quad headlights, a mesh grille, and other changes. Wish we'd bought that one.

My '42 Hudson coupe came out of the same junkyard the Skylark was in. I also got a '60 Caddy ragtop, a '58 Dodge ragtop, a '59 Impala ragtop, three Model A's, a '37 Willys sedan, and a bunch of other cars before it was gone. Found a complete Model A roadster floor and subrails loose on the ground and bought it for $50. There was a rotty '50 Ford ragtop in the back that someone had stuck about a '50 Olds 303 and Hydro in. I picked up a mid-40s Chevy spinner steering wheel from the ground and sold it on eBay for $450 or so. My buddy got a '32 Packard front half that had been turned into a power plant for a belt driven sawmill or something. I also picked up probably two dozen Ford 3-bolt carbs including several Strombergs.

 

few years back local pick a part had a old 50's jaguar 95% complete

 

Early 70's in Murray,Ky. a complete '40 Ford sedan delivery in a large yard that is long gone. Old guy that owned the yard rarely sold anything. Also had some Nomads.

 

There was the 409 SS Impala for $425 (no motor or seats) in a local yard in 1995, the '62 Impala SS ragtop and the '63 Impala ragtop for $600 and $800 respectively in a yard Idaho falls in 1996, and finally, the 5 window A coupe body at the local steel recycling place in 1999. No floors, no firewall but it had doors, and quarters and the rest sitting next to the cast iron pile with 3 348's in it. I could have bought it all by the pound.

The current coolest (or strangest) is a '28 Packard 6 cowl, nose and chassis welded to some sort of five window coupe with a wooden flatbed on the back in a local yard.

 

1. A 1955 Nomad (Alex Auto Wrecking, 1968)
2. A 1950 Mercury woody Station wagon complete and running (Boxley Auto Wrecking, 1968). (The lady drove it in because it overheated) I bought it for $50.00
3. A 1957 Nomad complete, (brought in from South Pasadena because the tenants moved out and the landlord wanted it gone). I bought that too for $50.00

 

Maybe sombody can expand on this one. Less than 5 years ago, there was a numbers matching recently restored show winning Mopar Muscle car (69 or 70?)in the U-pullit in Omaha. Story goes- there was a bitter divorce and the wife got the car. She sold it to U-Pull-it. They said it`s worth more if they resold it. She said NO. She wanted to watch people tear the thing apart piece by piece. A friend of mine heard about about it and went there as fast as he could. By the time he got there, the car was swarmed with people. Sombody was removing the rearend, another was taking the motor out, another, the front clip. Ect, ect... He watched a little while and had to leave.

 

Kaiser Darrin roadster and a '32 Ford Roadster pickup.Both in yards near West Bend ,Wisconsin in 1975.