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

Eugene auto wreckers has an old 58 ranchero with an Edsel nose on it shaved decked had to have been done in the day. its so rusted now its not possable to save but in the day it must have been tits

 

back in 2002 i was at eatons salvage in winsor il and they just brought in a195? olds rocket88 it was a 4 door but it was complete every emblem moulding light glass all there interior was rotted to hell but all there too he gets alot of stuff from the barns when people pass on,,, i dont know what happened to it but i kept thinking wow what a great start to a resto every part was there

 

1960 Corvette pretty much stripped out in Wild Bill's in Sullivan, Wi. Yard is still there for now.

 

A brand new Plymouth Superbird that was used in a crash test. I think a very small piece of the car is still there.

 

I think the one that sticks out in my mind was a brite yellow 55 Chevy 2 dr sedan Gasser at Farley's Auto Salvage just outside of Springfield IL. it was lettered up with the name "Funny Bunny" on the rear 1/4 panels.
It looked like someone just picked it clean of the motor, race parts and wheels and sent the rest to the junk.

 

I remember visiting relatives in San Bernadino in 1972 and went to a local salvage yard for some parts for my Fairlane and there sitting on top of another car was a rust free blue 57 T-Bird. Didn't appear to have been wrecked, just picked over. I could not believe they would junk a rust free Classic car. But I guess in socal all cars are rust free. Wish I could have taken it back with me.

 

There is a salvage yard near Denton, TX that deals only in pre-1980 vehicles. He has a few thousand HAMB-friendly cars and trucks, and his prices show his pride in his collection. VERY high! Last time I was there (2000), he had a factory '69 Dart 440 car, minus eng/trans, along with a '60 Chrysler 300 letter car, '55 C300, and a very cool '47 Chrysler business coupe. Lots of "A" parts out back. Couple of '56 Nomad wagons. Bunches of Tri-Five stuff.

I'd say the '60 300 has been the coolest junkyard find, to me.

 

Not too long ago....

 

No single cars stick out other than the zephyr and mercs....







but lots of cool parts

 

I think I remember that car! Wonder where it went? What year did you cut it and install it at SFMM?

 

Cadillac birtz I think that's how you spell it

 

When I was a kid I remember seeing a baby blue '53 Chrysler New Yorker Convertible in a junkyard called Herb's in Antioch, Illinois. It was complete with shiney paint for the most part, all the trim, leather interior, engine and transmission...and no floorboards. They literally were just pieces of swiss cheese. I remember opening the driver's door and seeing the whole quarter panel move. Must've either had a leaky convertible top for 30 years, or someone parked it in Lake Michigan. It was really a sad sight, and I don't think there were many of those puppies built.

 

about 20 years ago, i was wandering a junk yard at Moss Landing, north of Monterey. Amongst the mix of old cars, sat a crusty 41 Willys sedan, with a J-2 Olds under the hood. it was complete, minus some glass. looked like it had just sat under a tree for 20 years. It didn't last long.

 

Pair of AMC Rebel machines in one yard that was in the early 80s.....37 mopar w/st axle and engine set back i think it was an olds engine also early 80s....as a kid mid70s a whole row of 60s GTOs....

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I was 16 and looking aropund at Malic's wrecking in Redmond, Oregon for a good grille for my 50 crestliner [found one for 10 bucks] when I spotted this brownish-silver 37 Buick Century 2 door sedan backed up against the fence. It looked like a buff of the paint would bring the car back to as-new condition. I opened the door and sat in the perfect mohair seat...turned the key and the gauges came to life but the batttery was too low to start the engine.
Could find nothing wrong with the car.

 

Way back in the early 80's we found a really destroyed 1955 or 1956 (Memory is fuzzy) Safari Wagon. It had been T-Boned and was really messed up. Anything usable was pretty much gone at that point.

 

Back in Brea Ca in the mid '60s we kept horses on property that doubled as a small junkyard. There were T's and A's (my neighbor bought several that were drivable for $100 ea) aplenty but the weirdest was an air cooled Franklin that the owner would start for you if you asked him. It had four flats but it ran. The car was very lux inside with bud vases and strap hangers. I remember the cooling louvers on the sides of the hood. They were thermostatically spring operated to open when the car got hot.

This property is now condos.

 

I liked this one. Could have had it for $200. in 2005

 

In Kodiak, there is (was?) a salvage yard that was operated by a gentleman named "Smokey". This is the place where EVERYTHING that was considered junk or scrap was taken. There were two 55 Pontiac 2dr wagons, a 58 Bel Air 2dr hdtp, a badly wrecked 62 'vette, lots of ex-USN stuff (big naval base during WWII), even quite a bit of bits and pieces from early aircraft. In a large pile (actually a pit that was slowly being filled) was a 36-37-38 Pierce-Arrow 4dr sedan. Don't know whether it was in an accident or whether the salvage yard monkeys damaged it, but seemed to be a lot of useful small parts left.

 

Cool! I hoped someone would do something like that. I hadn't thought of that in years until this thread jogged my memory. The first time I saw it it just didn't register what I was looking at. Then on the second trip I realized that it wasn't a weird Studebaker... It was what I thought it was!

We had a cabin on Bone Lake about 8 or 9 miles away, so the first thing I would do when I got there for the weekend was hit the yard. Some of the trim on my Plymouth to this day is from that yard.

 

I used to date a girl in Dexter, MI and would frequent a yard near their home when I'd visit during the summer. There was the shell of a Porsche 1500 coupe sitting on top of a container in the far corner of the yard. Obviously, it didn't look like this one, but you get the idea of what was running through my head

 

Whitey's auto wreckers in Atwater, 1992...There was a Chrysler Airflow sitting on top of the rear of an old flatbed truck. Sheet metal was straight, and the grille was there!
I asked ol' Whitey about it, but he was evasive...never could get an answer.

It disappeared around '94, I think...Whitey was ousted, and the yard was reclaimed by the original owner.

Could the Airflow that's running B'Ville for the last few years be the same car???
Not many Airflows are 'hot rodded'...

 

Las Vegas, Nevada used to have a slew of cool boneyards out where the NA$CAR track, the Shelby facility and other buildings are now. In the late '80s when we would go TDY to Nellis, others on the crew would head to the strip to lose their money, where I'd rent a wreck and go to the scrapyards! One day, there was a '62 Chrysler 300 convertible parked right inside the entrance to one of the yards that they had just bought. They wanted $750 for it! Running, driving and all! The top was pretty tattered, but the tan leather interior was in pretty good shape, considering the desert climate and all. I was soooooo close to buying it, but getting it home was going to pose a problem, so I passed.

 

They're all still there, as far as I know.

 

Back in 1970 I lived in South Gate Calif and south of us on Alameda street along the railroad track in Compton near Firestone blvd a junk yard had a 1963 Jaguar XKE V12 and used his forklift went through the windows to moved it down to get another car below it.

Frenchy

 

Gotgas, how old are your pics? That doesn't look like where I am talking about. No trees remotely that large, lots of sagebrush and dirt, and Nevada and California plates on most everything there. Looking at what you posted, those cars have Texas plates; and I can see the pics being in Texas somewhere, not Las Vegas.

The yards I'm talking about were about a half-mile off Craig Rd, going up the hill towards the area the track is now. Off Nellis Blvd, if you are heading towards the track, go about a mile and then you'd cut left and headed parallel to Craig, towards the yards. Only saw one fairly large yard out that direction, and that was in August 2010.

 

Forty years ago, but still/now wish I had been able to pick these two up. First, an early fifties J-2 Olds coupe or sedan. And second, a 1929 Ford oval window business coupe. By today's standards, both we're super project material. I was looking for a '28-29 Model A roadster to hot rod, and was blind to everything else. Could have gotten either one for free, but eventually got a '29 Tudor for my hot rod, also free for hauling away.

 

I have seen and purchased lots of really cool cars from junk yards over the years so it is hard to put my finger on one.

I do believe that my favorite car that I ever drug out of a junk yard was a '39 Husdon Opera Coupe. It was when the wife and I were first married before we graduated high school. Someone had hot rodded it at some point, it had a chevy 12 bolt rear with a posi when we got it. It also had a Hurst mount complete in the trunk. So we bolted a 283 that we had and a power slip in it.

Original paint (ghost grey) wirth real subtle maroon pin strips, original Mohair interior, with the jump seat and bud vase intact. It set right down in the dirt. A 30 dollar investment plus what it cost to shove the engine and tranny in it.

We only drove it a couple of weeks before someone else wanted it more than we did. real sweet old car.

 

couple years back I saw a bulletnose Stude coupe and about a 55 Studebaker 4 door sedan at the local picknpull. both were good builders. the Bulletnose was original paint, no dents or rust and stripped of every piece of chrome and glass by the time i got there, the sedan was pretty good shape and complete.

cars don't stay too long at the junkyard around here. move em in and move em out.

I also remember a loooong time ago seeing a 51-52 chevrolet with most of the body removed. still had the floors with carpet and tuck and roll where your feet go. you could tell it must have been someones custom show car at one time by what was left.

 

Junk yards have changed a lot over the last 40 years. Once in a while someone will run onto a good old fashioned junk yard but for the most part they are more of a chop shop that what some of us remember as a junk yard.

When I was a little kid there used to be a cool old junk yard off of Army Street that we used to get into an play in the old cars (until we got caught and run off). I know now why they ran us off but it was just fun to climb into some old hooptie and make vroom vroom noises.