The Best Junkyard Finds of 2017

by Murilee Martin

Published: January 2nd, 2018

Starting with a 1981 Fox-body Ford Granada and ending with a 1989 Chrysler New Yorker Landau Mark Cross Edition, the eighth year of the Down On the Junkyard series featured 52 discarded cars that I found sufficiently interesting to be worth photographing. They ranged in age from seven to 51 years old, were built in locations ranging from Abingdon to Aichi, and ended their respective roads in conditions varying from basket case to pretty clean.

Here are my favorite ten, the ones that got me the most worked up when I first spotted them gleaming from within the junkyard chaff, presented in model-year sequence.

1966 Chevrolet Impala Sport Sedan

I drove more miles in a 1965 Chevy Impala sedan than I have with any other vehicle, which makes any 1960s full-sized Chevrolet a noteworthy Junkyard Find in my book. On top of that, this ’66 was assembled on the same week I was born. Yes, I bought the clock, just because.

1967 Chevrolet P20 Adventure Line Motorhome

All manner of recreational vehicles were built out of bouncy, tin-canning Detroit step-vans during the 1960s, mostly by Midwestern manufacturers, and this Chevy P20 combines full-on hooptiness with a wistful view of a period when most RVs were not attempting to be rolling luxury hotels.

1972 Jeep J-4000 Pickup Truck

It saddens me that most pre-1990s American light-duty trucks have five-digit odometers, because this extremely battered ex-snowplow Jeep I photographed in a Denver yard might have more miles on the clock than any vehicle I have ever photographed. This truck worked hard for 45 years.

1975 Mercedes-Benz 240D

Here’s a car that might have more miles than the Jeep J-4000: an oil-burning, slow-as-molasses diesel W115 Benz, found in the San Francisco Bay Area. These cars should last forever, but sometimes their owners let them get towed away for unpaid parking tickets, or trade them in on youthful 1990s Mercedes-Benzes, or just discard them out of ennui.

1976 Audi 100 LS Sedan

Just about all of these cars were eradicated from the face of the earth by about 1990, thanks to a combination of Teutonic complexity and low resale value; I hadn’t seen one in a wrecking yard for at least 25 years when I spotted this one in Colorado Springs.

1981 Datsun 280ZX 2+2

Some say the Datsun F-10 is the ugliest Japanese car ever made, but I disagree. I say it’s the 280ZX 2+2, and that’s why I photographed this one in Northern California.

601,173-mile 1987 Mercedes-Benz 190E

A gasoline-powered, single-cam, five-speed W201 with the highest plausible odometer reading I have ever seen in a wrecking yard (the highest implausible reading was this ’81 Volkswagen Rabbit Cabrio, indicating 930,013 miles on a janky-looking odometer). Still looked pretty nice when The Crusher ate it.

1989 Ford Tempo All Wheel Drive

Here’s how sick I am about oddball rare-but-not-valuable Detroit cars: I shouted “YES!” and did a little dance when I spotted this car. Have you ever seen a Tempo AWD in person?

1991 Toyota Camry DX with V6 engine and manual transmission

Manual-transmission second-generation Camrys are really rare (at least in North America), but I’ll see maybe one every few years. This is the only example of a second-gen Camry with a five-speed and a V6 engine I have found in all my years of junkyard explorations. Disappointingly, you couldn’t get the All-Trac Camry with this engine/transmission setup.

1993 Plymouth Voyager with manual transmission

It was possible to buy a new Chrysler minivan with a five-on-the-floor manual transmission through the 1995 model year. Few did. After years of checking mid-1990s minivans for three pedals, I found this one in Colorado.

#2017 #DownOnTheJunkyard #Junkyard #JunkyardFind

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments

Join the conversation

13 of 20 comments

Spreadsheet monkey on Jan 02, 2018

Jack Baruth's articles and the Junkyard Finds series are the two best things about TTAC. As a Brit observing the American car world from afar, these little pieces of junkyard history are fascinating. It's interesting to compare attitudes on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, our cars (a lot of Ford and GM, with some German and Japanese cars as well) go to the junkyard at an average age of 13 years old, thanks to our tough annual inspection and damp, salty roads. On TTAC, if a car from the early 2000s is featured in the junkyard without major accident damage, people will criticize it for dying too early.

1 Reply
- See 4 previous
- Conundrum on Jan 02, 2018
  
  Here's a tip - don't expect the majority of cars junked in North America to resemble these Colorado and California cars. I've lived in the UK, and frankly you don't know what salty roads are! Or cold. Or snow. If Murilee were photographing junkyards in the North East US and Canada, the vehicles would be younger than the UK norm and in far worse shape. Pre 2005 cars on the road around here are not common.
  
  Like
- JimC2 on Jan 02, 2018
  
  Conundrum is right. There's a big difference depending on whether you drive in the so-called "salt belt" or not. Still, in some parts of the salt belt 13+ year old cars can be found struggling down the road. Not all states have inspection programs and the programs that do exist are not always well administered; a few of them are "slightly" controversial (my nod to our British cousins' knack for subtle understatement).
  
  Like
- Lorenzo on Jan 02, 2018
  
  @JimC2 Inspections? Now there's no safety component, just smog. If there are no warning lights on the instrument panel and emissions are within spec, the vehicle passes.
  
  Like
- JohnTaurus on Jan 02, 2018
  
  @JimC2 You're right Jim. When scouring craigslist (via a Google search algorithm) for rare cars, I do find older models in the salt belt. Old Datsuns, Mercury Zephyrs, Oldsmobile Achievas, V-6 Tempos, etc. Many you can tell are not driven in the winter, but some are year-round transportation but are likely to be reasonably cared for (being treated with rust preventative and/or washed often). I thank God that I don't live in the salt belt. The issues down here in the Dirty South are that one, scrap prices pay decently and two, cars tend to get used up because people have to commute pretty far. My brother's 1997 GMC Sierra, for example, would be closing in on 400k had he kept a better eye on its oil level (it ran dry at 373k and the engine seized). His 2001 Altima was recently replaced by a newer Fusion, having some issues at 283k miles. He disliked the car anyway, so when it developed an issue with stumbling and stalling from a stop, he chose to get a car he would rather drive. (I traced the issue on the Altima to an oil seal that lets oil deposits on a little wheel inside the distributor, which is causing the issue. I cleaned the little wheel, and the car ran normally for a while until the problem returned a short time later. I plan on replacing the distributor one day, selling the car for him, and using the money to buy a wrecked 97ish 2wd Tahoe/Yukon or a pickup with a good running 350 we can swap into the GMC. I've spotted a few for cheap, and I can part out what's left of the donor truck as well.)
  
  Like
- Northeaster on Jan 02, 2018
  
  If it were an animate object, my 2004.5 B5 Passat would object strongly to this thread. Not a lick of body rust, original exhaust system (including cat), and only a modest amount of surface rust at the bottom of the bottom end of the engine after 14 years of ungaraged heaven in Boston.
  
  Like
Mypoint02 on Jan 02, 2018

>Have you ever seen a Tempo AWD in person? I’ve actually driven one. My high school girlfriend had one. I think it was a ‘92. I remember her saying it would break a u-joint if the AWD was engaged, so unfortunately I never got to experience the Tempo under 4 wheel power. I knew it was an odd duck even back then. Never saw one before or after that...

Like Reply
- See 5 previous
- JohnTaurus on Jan 03, 2018
  
  Not to be picky, but they stopped making them after 1991. With the 1992 refresh, the AWD was dropped, but the V-6 was added. Tempo's AWD system was designed to get you unstuck, it wasn't meant to be used on dry pavement, and doing so could definitely cause problems. It was more akin to a part-time 4wd system than it is to what we see as AWD today (which doesn't require driver input to work, unlike the Tempo). Even the 4wd Aerostar worked automatically with no input required. If it detected the rear wheels spinning, the front wheels were automatically engaged.
  
  Like
- Detroit-Iron on Jan 03, 2018
  
  @JohnTaurus This is why I still love TTAC. Thanks John.
  
  Like
- JohnTaurus on Jan 03, 2018
  
  @Detroit-Iron Resident Tempo (and many other unloved cars) enthusiast at your service. :)
  
  Like
- Corey Lewis on Jan 04, 2018
  
  @JohnTaurus Makes me angry they called it AWD when it was really a 4wd thing.
  
  Like
- JohnTaurus on Jan 11, 2018
  
  @Corey Lewis Well, those terms were being sorted out at the time. "4wd" usually meant truck/SUV.
  
  Like
- Corey Lewis on Jan 11, 2018
  
  @JohnTaurus That's a good point - I had not considered there was a development of those terms around this era.
  
  Like

Recent Comments

Stan Reither Jr. Part throttle efficiency was mentioned earlier in a postThis type of reciprocating engine opens the door to achieve(slightly) variable stroke which would provide variable mechanical compression ratio adjustments for high vacuum (light load) or boost(power) conditions IMO
Joe65688619 Keep in mind some of these suppliers are not just supplying parts, but assembled components (easy example is transmissions). But there are far more, and the more they are electronically connected and integrated with rest of the platform the more complex to design, engineer, and manufacture. Most contract manufacturers don't make a lot of money in the design and engineering space because their customers to that. Commodity components can be sourced anywhere, but there are only a handful of contract manufacturers (usually diversified companies that build all kinds of stuff for other brands) can engineer and build the more complex components, especially with electronics. Every single new car I've purchased in the last few years has had some sort of electronic component issue: Infinti (battery drain caused by software bug and poorly grounded wires), Acura (radio hiss, pops, burps, dash and infotainment screens occasionally throw errors and the ignition must be killed to reboot them, voice nav, whether using the car's system or CarPlay can't seem to make up its mind as to which speakers to use and how loud, even using the same app on the same trip - I almost jumped in my seat once), GMC drivetrain EMF causing a whine in the speakers that even when "off" that phased with engine RPM), Nissan (didn't have issues until 120K miles, but occassionally blew fuses for interior components - likely not a manufacturing defect other than a short developed somewhere, but on a high-mileage car that was mechanically sound was too expensive to fix (a lot of trial and error and tracing connections = labor costs). What I suspect will happen is that only the largest commodity suppliers that can really leverage their supply chain will remain, and for the more complex components (think bumper assemblies or the electronics for them supporting all kinds of sensors) will likley consolidate to a handful of manufacturers who may eventually specialize in what they produce. This is part of the reason why seemingly minor crashes cost so much - an auto brand does nst have the parts on hand to replace an integrated sensor , nor the expertice as they never built them, but bought them). And their suppliers, in attempt to cut costs, build them in way that is cheap to manufacture (not necessarily poorly bulit) but difficult to replace without swapping entire assemblies or units).I've love to see an article on repair costs and how those are impacting insurance rates. You almost need gap insurance now because of how quickly cars depreciate yet remain expensive to fix (orders more to originally build, in some cases). No way I would buy a CyberTruck - don't want one, but if I did, this would stop me. And it's not just EVs.
Joe65688619 I agree there should be more sedans, but recognize the trend. There's still a market for performance oriented-drivers. IMHO a low budget sedan will always be outsold by a low budget SUV. But a sports sedan, or a well executed mid-level sedan (the Accord and Camry) work. Smaller market for large sedans except I think for an older population. What I'm hoping to see is some consolidation across brands - the TLX for example is not selling well, but if it was offered only in the up-level configurations it would not be competing with it's Honda sibling. I know that makes the market smaller and niche, but that was the original purpose of the "luxury" brands - badge-engineering an existing platform at a relatively lower cost than a different car and sell it with a higher margin for buyers willing and able to pay for them. Also creates some "brand cachet." But smart buyers know that simple badging and slightly better interiors are usually not worth the cost. Put the innovative tech in the higher-end brands first, differentiate they drivetrain so it's "better" (the RDX sells well for Acura, same motor and tranmission, added turbo which makes a notable difference compared to the CRV). The sedan in many Western European countries is the "family car" as opposed to micro and compact crossovers (which still sell big, but can usually seat no more than a compact sedan).
Jonathan IMO the hatchback sedans like the Audi A5 Sportback, the Kia Stinger, and the already gone Buick Sportback are the answer to SUVs. The A5 and the AWD version of the Stinger being the better overall option IMO. I drive the A5, and love the depth and size of the trunk space as well as the low lift over. I've yet to find anything I need to carry that I can't, although I admit I don't carry things like drywall, building materials, etc. However, add in the fun to drive handling characteristics, there's almost no SUV that compares.
C-b65792653 I'm starting to wonder about Elon....again!!I see a parallel with Henry Ford who was the wealthiest industrialist at one time. Henry went off on a tangent with the peace ship for WWI, Ford TriMotor, invasive social engineering, etc. Once the economy went bad, the focus fell back to cars. Elon became one of the wealthiest industrialist in the 21st century. Then he went off with the space venture, boring holes in the ground venture, "X" (formerly Twitter), etc, etc, etc. Once Tesla hit a plateau and he realized his EVs were a commodity, he too is focused on his primary money making machine. Yet, I feel Elon is over reacting. Down sizing is the nature of the beast in the auto industry; you can't get around that. But hacking the Super Charger division is like cutting off your own leg. IIRC, GM and Ford were scheduled to sign on to the exclusive Tesla charging format. That would have doubled or tripled his charging opportunity. I wonder what those at the Renaissance Center and the Glass House are thinking now. As alluded to, there's blood in the water and other charging companies will fill the void. I believe other nations have standardized EV charging (EU & China). Elon had the chance to have his charging system as the default in North America. Now, he's dropped the ball. He's lost considerable influence on what the standardized format will eventually be. Tremendous opportunity lost. 🚗🚗🚗