Made it Ten years before getting Junked!

Dude if you have photos of those that would kick ass.

 

I dont have any pics and the plates have since rusted off most of them,I think the plates are still on the 55 and 71 mustang. I will get some pics of the plates on the frame pile the next time I go there,I wish I would of gotten pics when I first started going there about 25 years ago.

 

awesome!

 

i have to dissagree, my 1955 pontiac had 140,000k on it when i got it,(now has 154,000 in a 6 month time) and was still useing the original master cylnder, i bought it from the second owner, still using original running gear, only had one new exhaust one it and no rot, for brakes if you use the asbestos lined ones ( i can still get them up where i am) they last 3 times longer than the new ones, i think its a judgement call but i agree with desertratrodder<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_5005859", true); </SCRIPT>

 

We have all forgotten that the purpose of the junkyards has now changed. They are a repository of late-model cars for the auto-body shops. That is how they make their money, NOT from us coming by once a month or so and haggling over a $10 grille badge.

The reason there are no early cars?? They get crushed nearly immediately, because the real estate that they take up is too valuable for the few parts they *might* sell to someone. I was going once a WEEK in the summer, and STILL missed a '66 T'bird. Saw it in the crushed pile. And the guys there knew I came in weekly. The '70 Sedan De Ville was only there the once, that I saw.

As far as build quality - are you fuckin' kidding me?? The new cars coming out are so far and above what has been that it is simply amazing.
Do you realise that there is practically nothing built today that cannot run 0-60 in less than 10 seconds?? Have you ever tried to corner in anything over 30 years old?? Did you realise that there are 4 door SE-FUCKING-DANS that can outrun and outcorner a Shelby Cobra?? With the fucking AIR on?? Weighing perhaps three times as much??

I love older cars as much as most of you, but I have managed to retain a semblance of sanity about it. Take the rose-tints off, no one will look down upon you just because you are intelligent enough to recognise progress.

Cosmo

 

I dont care if the new cars are built better then the old ones but I still dont like them,you almost have to be a rocket scientist to work on one or have the money to have it done so I would rather own nothing newer then the 70s except for a post 80s to run in the salt during the winters here in Ohio and then throw it away when its too rusty and start over. I use pre OBD II for beaters as I kind of know how to keep them running and dont have to worry about the check engine light coming on if you fart in it wrong.

 

Have a 61 pontiac convert in the shop that was last registered in 63. Lost the right top A frame and was left set. Sorry, no pics of when it was found.

 

I was at one junkyard and seen a 62 caddy convertible with 68 plates,a engine fire took it off the road. Back in the 60s newer cars were not that expensive and if you got 6 to 10 years out of one it was no big deal to park it and get another but you cant do that now due to the cost.

 

my 69 austin healey was last plated in 1974 was parked from that point on only 5 yrs old and left to die

 

I also seen a early 60s triumph Hearld with 68 plates and still looks savable and if it has a title would like to do something with it.

 

I just donated a 1989 chevy pickup to Salvation Army that had 282k on it didn't use much oil replaced trans @ 237k and rebuilt frt susp once a good trk!

 

An employee of mine had an 92 Honda Accord that was hit in the side. I asked how much could he buy it from the insurance co. for and he said $300. I put a screw in the rear bumper cover to keep it from flopping and have driven it for 5 years. It just won't die.

But I do still like the older cars for what they are and the memories they hold from my youth.

 

I dont think the quality is any better on newer cars, ( Just talk to any Toyota owner with a gas pedal problem.) If I remember correctly you changed your oil every 6000 miles and changed the filter every 12000. Oil was in glass jars and was green! Unlike the high detergant low vescosity oils of today. I think that general upkeep is the key. My grandfather had a 31 Buick up till 1955. He blamed the antifreeze for killing the engine. He allways ran kereosine as a coolant ( It didnt freeze in the winter.) Then he baught a 55 Buick.

 

I have an '91 Chevy with 195,000 miles on it. Its been through several owners and based on the condition of the body and interior hasn't been treated nice most of its life. But its a 3/4-ton four-wheel-drive and its been worked hard and I use it as a parts runner and trailer puller.

Why has it lasted so long? I think EFI and overdrive are big parts of that. EFI means its not running rich very often and overdrive means the motor is turning less average per mile. Better oils are part of it. I don't know that it was built any better though it may have been.

I expect the reason we'll see more cars scrapped at ten to twenty years old is the wiring and electronics. Modern cars are more dependent on wire than the early ones and with the miles of copper running in most cars the time required to trouble shoot and repair problems will make many of them far too expensive to repair.

Its not real hard to rewire a 40's or 50's car even doing it from scratch. Imagine doing that on a 90's car... It will take real dedication to keep one of those going once the wiring harness starts to fail.

Last year I replaced my wife's driver. Japanese car only nine years old with 140,000 and was costing me $4000 a year to maintain. Its scheduled service visits were $2000 each time and things going wrong with it were adding up. I sold it needing more work than its high book value and it was not a high book car. Of course I didn't get high book for it either.

If I had not have found a buyer its seats would now be in my '55 1st Suburban and the car itself would have been hauled to the nearest junkyard after a few weeks of offering parts on craigslist. 2000 Subaru Outback almost scrapped before its 10th birthday.

 

The 53 I just got has a plate from 1966 so it's sat since I was a year old. It only made it 13 years but it did roll over 100k. I assume the engine probably died since the body isn't too bad. The right fron tire leans pretty badly so maybe the suspension failed and they pushed it out in a field. Makes you wonder what happened.

http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc332/gngngn/53arrival003.jpg

 

I'm with Cosmo on this one. Cars are MUCH better built today. My Dad use to trade them off at 60,000 mile, said they were to a point repairs would be to much. Now days 60,000 is just barly broke in.
When I was in High school I drug home an "old" car with a chain. This was 1973 and the car was a 68 Barracuda. 5 years old, 58,000 miles. Motor was toast (granted the lady that owned it probably didn't maintain it well) but also the silver paint had gone to primer and the interior was shot, seats all brittle and split. By comparison I had a 2003 Dodge that was 5 years old with 62000 mile on it (roughly the same as the Barracuda) when it was stolen. Ran like the day I bought it new with nothing more then oil changes. Paint and upholstry still looked new as well even though it sat outside full time. Same 5 years old but to me it still felt like a new truck whereas my Barracuda was junk at 5 years. I think anyone that's be around long enough to remember when our old cars were new has to agree cars are better built today.
I will also agree that when the new cars are "done", they will be done. there won't be any hobby of fixing up a 70 year old car drug out of a pasture 70 years from now.

 

I bought this truck, it has a '67 plate on it, so it went 21 years. It had an 8BA motor that had 0.010 under bearings, so the stock motor was replaced with something that was rebuilt. The guy I bought it from said that it was considered junk years before it was parked and it was hacked into a hunting camper that was used a couple times a year until parked.

I bought the Falcon in about '83, so about 20 years old 50K miles. Doors pinched because the inner rockers were rusted out. Floor was rusted out. Engine ran like crap, my old man rebuilt it in his shop.

I am not going to get into it about why so few years/miles clocked since I really don't know the full story outside of rust. I commute in a '99 Ford Escort 135K miles on it, I do know which car I want to drive in the road salt on my commute

 

i bought a 58 buick limited tudor that was pushed in the owners garage when it quit runnin in 1968 it had 58 thousand miles on it and only needed battery ,points and clean gas(and tank) and needed brake work after i drug it out in 99 ran it rough but i sold it .. most money i ever made flippen a car
the family said it made 3 trips from minn to the west coast....

thats 5800 a year while it was driven less than 500 a month.
heck i drive more than 500 a week

 

My 55 sunlier was parked in 68 due to a wagon was needed to haul the kids and was only offered 50 dollars at trade in so a garage was built and in it went,my 37 chevy p/u was on the road for 21 years and then a couple years around the farm after the brakes went out but when the water was not drained one winter and the block cracked it was hauled out to the woods.

 

Average lifespan of 1950s cars was about 10 years and 100,000 miles, going by the last plates on them in various junkyards. The one yard I've been in that had some 30s-40s cars they seemed to last about the same, going by the plates on them.

I go to the late model salvage all the time and 80s cars are all but non-existant in most of them, you get your occasional oldie, but the vast majority out there are 1990-2005 or so. The newest ones tend to be wrecked. Getting parts for my '95 Chevy van, or '89 and '91 Suburbans, is no real problem - there's an '88, a '92 and two '95 vans out there now. I even noticed about a '96 Monte Carlo the other day that had a dealer tag from Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet in NC, how it got to New York who knows, it surprises me the number of relatively solid, out of town/out of state vehicles they seem to get out there. The one '80s GM car out there now is an '85 Gran Prix, for the hell of it I look under and jeeze - the frame's not rotted out like every other one up here, you'd think someone would have bought it to make a stock car out of.


The only real difference in the later model stuff is I see a lot of odometers that stopped with over 150,000 miles on them. My '91 has 161K on it. My '89 would still be going but it rotted badly from a lifetime of road salt - I wouldn't be surprised if they last longer in western/southern states, over on the Chevy board someone was telling they salvaged a used brake line off a '92 pickup for their truck - I can't even imagine trying to re-use an original brake line, I had one I installed myself rot out in just 4 years or so.

I should add the 95 has 109K on it, and runs fairly well - GM's TBI system is pretty bulletproof. The IAC valve has a problem I need to sort out. But I took the doghouse off it and it's entirely possible it saw no maintenance under it before me - had "Packard Electric" plug wires, which I assume are original, PCV valve could have been factory, etc. Older cars don't take as well to lack of maintenance.

 

With all of the new cars looking like a used bar of soap I think it's a blessing that they won't be around long enough to become collector cars OR hot rods.

Frank

 

hahah very good point.

 

This was when I was a toddler but my father stripped out a totaled 1971 XY Falcon, a genuine GTHO Phase III. The car was only four years old at the time, to put it in perspective the Phase III would be the Aussy answer to the Shelby GT350 they sell now in the $500,000 to the big Million dollar range.
The motor, gear box and diff are in the family Hot Rod, I wish he kept the rest of it even in parts it would be worth a SHIT LOAD.

Doc