Author: Murilee Martin
Ford began selling the Ford Crown Victoria within the 1992 model yr, and its incredible 20 years of sales success with law enforcement organizations and taxi firms tended to overshadow its popularity as a civilian vehicle. Naturally, loads of Crown Vics have been customized, with highlights including tank engine swaps, Police Interceptor lowriders and so forth, and today’s Junkyard Gem is a first-year automobile that I discovered in a North Carolina automobile graveyard just a few months ago. Ford began using the Crown Victoria name in the center Nineteen Fifties (little question inspired by the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II),…
Chrysler sold PT Cruisers in america for the 2001 through 2010 model years, with sales strong at first after which regularly diminishing because the twenty first century got rolling and the initial retro-styling novelty wore off. Since it was based on the Dodge/Plymouth Neon, performance parts were available for the PT Cruiser; eventually, an aftermarket for body kits and other exterior modifications sprang up. Today’s Junkyard Gem is an early PT Cruiser that received a number of of those customizing touches during its life, present in a San Francisco Bay Area automotive graveyard last fall. The turbocharged GT version didn’t…
Volvo did well enough selling the PV444/544, Amazon and 140 in the USA, but it surely was the Volvo 200 Series that actually launched Göteborg iron into the American big time. Introduced here as a 1975 model, the 200 stayed in production for nearly two full many years and stays probably the most immediately recognizable Swedish automotive ever made. Here’s an early-production 244, present in a Denver-area automotive graveyard not way back. The 200 Series may very well be considered an update of the late-Nineteen Sixties-vintage 140 Series, because it’s essentially the identical automotive from the A pillars back. The…
Jeep is all the way down to just two models with available manual transmissions now (the Wrangler and its Gladiator sibling), nevertheless it wasn’t so way back that atypical commuter Jeeps might be purchased with three-pedal setups. Today’s Junkyard Gem is one in all those machines: a first-generation Liberty with a six-speed manual bolted to its V6 engine, present in a Denver automotive graveyard recently. I’m at all times on the lookout for rare manual-equipped vehicles during my junkyard travels, and I’ve found such oddities as a manual 2007 Toyota Camry (in addition to one in all the last V6/manual…
A lot of the vehicles you will find within the Ewe Pullets of the land will likely be atypical cars and trucks, but unexpected surprises can show up in the combination. I’ve documented ice cream trucks, TV stars, art cars, military staff vehicles and even a tank over my years of exploring automotive history in junkyards. Today’s Junkyard Gem is an icon of the American crunchy-snacks industry, present in a boneyard near Monterey, California. Plenty of auto manufacturers have aircraft of their DNA, including Saab, Subaru/Nissan (via the Nakajima Aircraft Company) and Mitsubishi. Grumman Olson was born when the Grumman…
Ford began selling the Escape Hybrid in america 4 years after the introduction of the Toyota Prius here, with production continuing through 2012. To switch it, a Focus-derived MPV that had proven itself in Europe was given a gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain and introduced as a 2013 model for North America. This was the C-Max Hybrid, and I’ve found one in all those first-year cars in a Wyoming self-service automobile graveyard. The C-Max was the primary American-market Ford model that was available only as a hybrid, and sales continued through 2018 (after which it was canceled as a result of being…
After writing about nearly 3,000 discarded vehicles throughout the past 17 years, I’ve learned that it takes just over a decade for a brand new kind of automotive to start showing up in the large self-service boneyards (not counting unrecognizably crashed and/or burned ones). The primary mass-produced battery-electric vehicles of the fashionable era hit American streets throughout the early 2010s, which implies used-up examples can now be found in Ewe Pullet-type automotive graveyards. Here’s one currently residing in Carson City, Nevada. While battery-powered vehicles enjoyed mainstream sales success throughout the early days of the auto, there have been only a…
The Ford F-Series was one of the best selling motorcar in the US for the 1982 model 12 months and has remained within the No. 1 spot ever since. You’d think that Junkyard Gem-worthy examples of that historic F-Series generation could be easy to search out within the automotive graveyards I frequent, given what number of were sold, but a lot of the ones that do show up have been used up beyond easy recognition after which picked clean by junkyard shoppers. That is not the case with today’s truck spotted in a northeastern Colorado yard: a reasonably solid 1985…
An American automobile shopper in search of a brand new V12-engined coupe in 1985 had two selections: Spend the present-day equivalent of several hundred grand for a Ferrari or Lamborghini … or get a Jaguar XJ-S for a few third that price. Today’s Junkyard Gem is one among those cars, present in a Denver automobile graveyard recently. Jaguar began bolting V12 engines into the E-Type starting in 1971, then into the XJ12 sedan soon after that. By the point the E-Type was discontinued after 1974, Jaguar had spent the higher a part of a decade grappling with the near-impossible task…
Toyota and Honda enjoyed lucrative American sales success with the RAV4 and CR-V compact crossovers, which went on sale here for the 1996 and 1997 model years, respectively. Suzuki offered its first-generation Escudo/Vitara here (because the Sidekick, along with being sold by GM with Geo Tracker badging), but its Eighties design had develop into embarrassingly dated by the center Nineties. Something needed to be done; that turned out to be the second-generation Vitara, which appeared here as a 1999 model. Here’s a first-year example, present in a Colorado automobile graveyard recently. The primary Suzuki-made automobile model sold recent in america…
