Exploring Arizona- abandoned, wrecked cars & trucks, old hiways, etc

Wanted to start this thread as I like to hike and explore all over our state. Like exploring old hiways, finding abandoned cars and mines and whatever.
So far, have found at least 20 of them from the teens through the 70s.

If you know of any abandoned and wrecked cars around, please post also. You do not have to say where they are unless you wish to.
Personally, these things have been sitting for so long, it is best to just leave them for the next guy to explore.

Will start out with a '53 or '54 Chev coupe.

 

I never get tired of looking at old iron out west keep posting

In your album, this your yard ? more photos of the yard would be cool

 

Sad to see the '53-'54 Chevy all mashed up like it is, especially since it's a 2 door hardtop. Might be able to save the driver's door and dash.

 

Here's a few that I came across in Az. A great place for old iron!

 

I too have done lots of the same, but never thought to photograph any of them. I used to hike ghost towns a bunch here in the state and where ever there was activity about 80 - 100 years ago, there usually is car stuff laying around. Even just off our main hiways too. Most people never notice as they drive from Cordes junction to Prescott that they pass a '48 Plymouth and a '48 Olds in the wash at Big Bug. Both are about the same shape as the Chevy above, but the Plymouth has given some of it's trim to my car over the years.

I won't tell where, but up near Jerome, there is a an arroyo that has tons of teens and twenties stuff down at the bottom. Again, nothing nice enough to polish up and drag home and call something, but most of my "T" touring body has come from there.

Dateland AZ. Ya gotta peal yourself away from the date shakes at the retaurant, but there is a feild of cars out there too. Mostly '40s '50s stuff, and again, not real saveable but good for parts.

The '42 Ford in Tacna that most people drive by everyday, The model "A" roadster pick up dissassembled in an Ajo front yard on the main street. The entire town of Owl, if you can find it... Oh, and the owner way over values everything.

There is a whole canyon of 50's cars down near St. David

A couple of shots above were from Salome.

The "T" C-cabs sitting in Roll...

Truth is, it's not just Arizona, it's everywhere. You just have to look these days, 'cause it's just flat not sitting out in the open like it was a generation ago.

 

A few near Benson, this was 4 years ago...not sure if they're still around.

 

Ouch!

 

Some folks probably dont understand the ravages of flashfloods which are common in the desert. Most cars in these pics wereprobably either washed away in floods or put there by humans for flood control. Possibly a few were actual results of wrecks, .. plummeling off the road above.

... gotta have the bullet holes! Great thread.

 

Yes, this is my stuff at one of my yards. Have 2 now and slowly moving everything to the new place. Thisyard is for sale less the inventory.
These cars are not abandoned though.

 

What a great start for this thread!

Here is what I think is a '37 Ford coupe. If any of you can id it differenty, let me know.

 

This is something we found yesterday during an extensive hike we call 'auto archeology'. This was in the Salt River Canyon area in Gila county.



Does anyone know what it is? Late 40s is my guess.

If anyone here in Arizona likes to hike and explore old cars, mines and buildings, contact me.

 

I see a floor panel patch I could use!

 

Mercury

 

did ya ever get any pics of the old yard by the middle school? I never did and now ferris completely cleaned it out... oh well, another spot for cool cars languishing is in Jerome AZ, I used to live there there all over the place.

 

Cool thread! Thanks for posting. Squirrell I'm from Benson and have never seen that stash. Where the heck were you?

 

Squirrel, that was the canyon of cars I refered to as being near St. David... Guess it is closer to Benson.

T-man, funny you should say that about patches, 'cause that's what we have alot of! Ask ElPolacko about us driving to Needles California to take a front clip off of a '46 Fordor sedan from public land in broad daylight... He tells the story better than I do!

Along the same lines, when I was a kid in the late seventies and had a '35 5window with some floor rust, there was a '35 tudor sedan rolled over in a wash in Yarnell AZ., right on hiway 89. You couldn't miss it! Took my mom's ElCamino and my mini torches one day, drove up, torched the floor out, threw it in the back of the cruck, drove home and transplanted! All this tranpired by the side of a semi major hiway... And I didn't even have a driver's license yet!

 

Outside of Showlow, the main highway and can't recall the name but it is like you are heading twards New Mexico, there is a long sweeping curve that replaced a hard left turn. The hard left turn had a gas station at the point of the turn - all of that is now abandoned and the original road is still kinda there. Behind the station and seperated by some woods was a large junkyard. None of it can be seen from the highway. When i lived in White River a friend took me there as i was looking for stuff for a '34 chevy. We walked thru those trees and the first thing i saw was a model 't' rpu near the end of the woods, when i walked into the field beyond all i could see was abandoned cars. All i remember were cars from the 30's and 40's layin all over the place, i recall a '40 coupe layin on its' roof missing the rear axle.
That was the time that Pete (who showed me the place) had reached down into the brush to pull a part out and a black widow spider hopped onto his arm and was walking up it. Pete had only 1 arm and couldn't flick the damn thing off and about passed out from huffing and puffing trying to blow it off and trying not to piss him off enough to bite him.
If anybody knows how to do the satillite view thing it would be nice to know if the junkyard is still there. There was a ton of old tin in it back in the late '70's.

 

If I am looking in the right spot from your description it is all houses.

 

Cool stuff guys! I'd gladly tag along on any expedition into the desert if anybody's going. Here's a thread I started awhile back about some stuff I found out in the eastern part of the state.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=443990

 

Ferris kept most of that stuff and I got one out of that batch myself from him. You can guess what make it was

HEY, it's my 1,000th post whoopie!

 

Just click and drag the mouse to move the map and use the zoom
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Show+...l=us&hnear=Show+Low,+Navajo,+Arizona&t=h&z=13

 

Wow!!! That´s a 1960 Impala Sport Coupe Hardtop erected on top of that pile! Even though the roof is shot full of holes, just looking at the pristine trunk floor, trunk channels and quarter panels, that body shell sure would make someone somewhere with a similar-year rusty convertible happy!

The same goes for the ´59 Buick further down Your original post, as well.

 

That would be hwy 60 from Show Low to Springerville. Not sure where that curve is though.

 

For years here in the desert old cars have been used for flood control. With a little scrounging you never know what you might find.

 

How 'bout some drives in the hot rod?
Jump on 89 at it beginings just north of Wickenburg and don't stop 'till you hit Utah... Hell, if you got time, don't stop there! Grad some ice cream in Wickenburg, Smoe lunch in Yarnell at the cafe at the top of the grade, a quick drink at the spirit room in Jerome, Wait a bit and have dinner in Sedona or Flagstaff. One of my favorite ways to spend the day. The Plymouth's first hard miles when I popped for the Tremac was spent doing just what I described!
Or, one no one everthinks about, take I-10 out of the Phoenix smog-plex to and go left on 85 south... Yes, I am suggesting Gila Bend! Stop and have lunch at the Space Age diner or the Italian joint, then keep heading south. After you leave Gila Bend the road is flat for a bit, then turns into a neat surface of the moon kinda land scape with tons of volcanic rock and giant boulders that don't seem to match. As you pop into the mountains you enter the Barry Goldwater Air Force target range and many times on this trip i've stopped and watched fighters practicing straifing runs down the mountain sides. Kinda unreal at sunset! Down into Ajo. Root around down there 'cause there is some tin stting around, lots of old mines, etc. Then south some more to Why, and across 86 into Tucson for some of the best 'Mezcun food on this planet... Out side of Phoenix, of course...

 

There is a lot of truth to that but if you look at all of the bodys that Squirrel showed on those photos they have one thing in common. The frame and running gear is missing from everyone of them that had a frame.

Back a number of years ago tin wasn't worth hauling in for scrap from a lo of places and guy rolled the junk cars on their sides and cut the frames out of them and cut that up for "prepared Iron" The body shells got hauled out and dropped over a cliff. The big junk yards would crush and haul truck loads of bodys but the little guy scrappers were just after the frames and running gear.
And there is the possibility that someone bought the bodys from junk yards after they were stripped to dump in those gulleys to slow down the erosion from flash floods. I heard of that being done here locally years ago.

In a town about 35 miles away from where I live one of our fellow Hambers (not to be named) and his buddies would drag the hulks of cars they had stripped the engines and transmissions from up to the local "lookout" and shove them over the edge just to see how far the would crash and band down the hillside. I doubt any of those bodies are still up there though. I was never in on it but heard the stories from the guys I went to trade school with.

 

found this `58 impala near the meteor crater in 2005.

 

Tons of that here in the desert. I could walk you to a place in Bouse, AZ. where a '36 five window coupe and '41 Merc Tudor are stuck into a cliff for erosion control. The front fenders from the coupe have been in my yard for years though...

 

A couple more thoughts on how to waste a perfectly good day in AZ... I talked earlier about hanging a left on Hiway 85 to Gila Bend... And I'm sure everybody who lives here thought "Why?". But, let's say instead of taking the four lane freeway that is 85 these days, and lets hang a right at the sign for Arlington, AZ. Lots of farms that have tin stashes on the way to Arlington, which it'self isn't too much, a bait store, general store, diner etc. Now, instead of following the road west to Tonopah, (cool stuff beyond that place too, but that's another story!) cut back south on old hiway 85 following the Gila Bend signs. You will be rewarded by a cruise along a pretty steam that is i tributary to the Gila river, but the cool part is the cetury old suspension bridge that still crosses the Gila... Stop for a bit and wade in the river if it's warm enough, if it's not, we'll all know your not from here! But study this bridge for a bit 'cause it's cool, and no one knows it's out here anymore. Then head south to Gila Bend and Ajo, Tucson as I said before.

Anther one no one does but is cool, Head south out of Mesa on 87, Country Club road. Take that all the way down to 287 and head into Florence. Once there, notice the clock in the cool old court house on the town square... It never changes time! Florence was at one time going to be a big, important place and they built a court house to suite that idea, but couldn't afford a the movement for the clock! Main street is cool too with some of the oldest commercial buildings still standing in the state. I'll continue later in the day, 'cause this one gets cool. Got some stuff to do.

 

Cool thread. Makes me want to explore Arizona.