Back when there were junkyards....

When I was coming of age,(early eighties) there were three good junkyards within a thirty mile radius. I spent many saturday's roaming these and breathing in all different makes & models. Small accents,strange accessories. Making mental notes of what part's would make the coolest car ect. It's a damn shame today's youth cannot exprience the old car magic first hand as readily as we have.Scrap prices,regulation,ect. are real buzz killers! Any cool junkyard tales?

 

Theres the tails of haunted cars in junkyards.......

 

I got lucky in a junk yard once! HRP

 

Add to this drive-in movies. I grew up about the same time and would go to the drive-in almost every weekend. There were at least ten drive-ins within 30 miles of my house. All gone by the end of the '80s.

 

I got lucky at the drive-in also. HRP

 

I have "gotten lucky" in a few unusual places, but NEVER a junkyard! My hat is off to you!

 

Flints in Taunton MA. 30's , 40's, 50's, whatever you needed. Whole cars to wing nuts.....I scored a set of Red 55 Ford button hub caps for $10. You could walk the yard yourself. Then the old man died and in 6 months the whole yard was crushed and hauled off. Houses stand there now....

 

HRP is a lucky kinda guy.

 

the young kids today 32 and younger have NO idea how much they are missing in many facets of life

 

smokes 2.00 a carton, gas 20 cent a gallon, movies one dollar per car, teenage girls free---and i too got lucky in a junk yard---America has been good to me...

 

Junk yard sex is better than make up sex!

 

Now they call em "Auto Recycling Centers" . Two dollar entry fee.

 

There is a drivein theater 2 miles from my house and a wrecking yard a mile away that I frequently roam. There are about 25-30 yards that I know of within 60 miles of my house and another drivein with a wrecking yard across the street. I guess I am just blessed.

 

If it fit in your hand carried tool box its free the rest you carry out is retail but always negotiable - I miss it. Just paid $400 for a T5 transmission - flywheel to the driveline guess I got a deal?

 

With a female right? Or was it Ned Beaty "Deliverance" style?

 

More of the same.The best yard...I to scored...a331 hemi. was crushed out around 93 because the son that was going to inheret it was a real douch.His dad did it for spite and i cried the day the crusher rolled in...P.S. we croozed in the 80's till the cops finally shut it down. Now the same town/businesses are trying to sponser cruise in's..no thanks.

 

We had a junkyard AND a drive in movie next to each other. Used to hop the fence into the junkyard, drag a car seat over next to the drive in fence and get someone to turn up the closest speakers.

 

Teenagers and hormones,,

Yeah,she was definitely a female and as far as "Deliverance" style,as they say "Homie don't play that game". HRP

 

Here, here. I have to drive for an hour to find a yard, then pay to dig around in it. Bullshit, pure bullshit. I say tear down the strip mall and put the boneyard back in.

I dated a girl that liked to go with, we'd have picnics amoung the clunkers, but I never talked her into junkyard sex, I was kinda focused on CAR parts, not so much her parts. Yes, I have mental problems....

 

I've got a pick n pull in my town. Some cool stuff shows up in in once in awhile but mostly minivans and taxi cabs now.

We put a 32 grille on a Model A and it looks cool. Putting a Focus grill on a Fusion today just isn't the same. Eventually combing the junkyard is going to get real boring.

 

My junkyard does don't charge to come and look around. We have a few oldies that we keep around.

 

I never got lucky at a junkyard but I do miss the old style yards where there was no organization and they stacked the cars on top of each other. Some of them would have an inventory of higher demand parts they had pulled, but mostly you were on your own to find and remove parts in the yard. They had guys working there who might help you if you couldn't get the part off, usually by using the hot wrench. Those guys were almost as scary as the junk yard dogs. I have been to the local pull-a-part where you pay admission but can check the computer for the part you need and the cars are organized by make and neatly placed on gravel instead of the dirt and mud of the old yards. It is sanitized but OK if you are looking for a specific part for your non-rod car. I worked at a drive-in washing windshields for tips - my very first job. We would see the movies for free over and over. When I got a car, I went to the same drive-in but didn't see much of the movie. Good memories of both places.

 

I have about 3 yards I go to that are pre 75 only. I go there sometimes just to walk around and look. It clears my mind. I look at the cars and wonder why someone welded hooks onto the roof gutter of a 54 Chevy wagon. Or wonder how many road trips to far away places a particular 67 country squire went before ending up in the yard.

I had a coworker whose 97 Nissan got its driver window smashed by a thief a couple of days ago. I decided to go to a pick n pull to get a used door glass for him. (he isn't mechanical at all.) That yard was depressing. All newer plastic cars. They could all go to the crusher and I wouldn't shed a tear.

This was also a pain in the ass, because my junkyard tool bag is full of standard tools. Everything in the pick n pull was metric!

 

Growing up in the 50-60s I lived about 4 miles from town. On Saturdays ,when I could come up with the 50¢ I would walk to town to see the movie. On the way home I would always stop off along the way and explore the local junkyard. It was next to the railroad track and closed on Saturday afternoon so I would walk home down the railroad tracks and sneak through the fence and spend an hour or two just looking through the old cars. This was before they used junkyard dogs to patrol the yard. I would try to see if I could figure out which wrecks people died in. Morbid little kid, huh? One thing I remember is that I never used to see rusted out cars. They were either wrecked or just worn out. I would daydream about buying one and fixing it back up. Cars were interesting back then, not so much anymore.
Now days you can't find a good junkyard.
If you could they won't let you in or the dogs won't let you in because of thieves.
And its no longer safe for kids to walk anywhere alone anymore....
"And the times...they are a changin' ."

 

...had a mid-50s GM yard '76-02....best part was being able to walk to work...

 

back in the fiftys junk yards were plentyfull my favorite area was willets point in queens ny later shea stadium was built there it had no less than 20 yards in a square mile, I hada 46 merc coupe that needed an interior stopped in one yard and asked the guy if he had and 46-48 fords or mercs he said the were a couple way in the back,i found a ford coupe with a black and white rolled and pleated in real good shape,i went and ask the guy how much and he said $15 but you take it out,i removed the whole interior rugs and all except for the headliner..them were the days

 

The dog doesn't count


just playing

and I too got lucky in a junk yard

 

I never mentioned a bitch! HRP

 

We still have junk yards on the west coast of Florida.

In the Clearwater area we have a few very good junk yards and I have friends who spend every Saturday junking for stuff.

I always call Shaky Ray and tell him what I need and he pulls the parts for me.

Cost a few bucks to have him do it but it well worth the money.

Jimbo

 

As far as Junk yards and drive in's in this area they have all dried up,,the Drive in's have been replaced with shopping malls and low income housing and the junk yards have ether vanished or become recycling centers where it matters not whether the car has chrome bumpers or not they are only worried in scrap value and not saving anything. HRP