Author: Murilee Martin
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…
By the center Sixties, George Romney had left the helm of American Motors to turn into governor of Michigan and company president Roy Abernethy had decided that AMC needed to compete more directly against GM, Ford and Chrysler. To ensure that the Kenosha manufacturer formed from the 1954 merger of Nash and Hudson to try this, a real full-size automobile needed to be created to steal sales from the Impala, Galaxie and Monaco. With a wheelbase stretch and a restyling by Dick Teague, the Rambler Ambassador became that automobile for the 1965 model 12 months. Here’s a once-snazzy soft-top Ambassador…
The 1965-1970 version of GM’s full-size B Platform was considered one of The General’s best successes, underpinning nearly 13 million cars. Each of the U.S.-market GM automotive divisions (except Cadillac) had their very own B-Bodies during those model years, from the proletarian Chevrolet Biscayne on as much as the opulent Buick Wildcat. Doing business only one small rung below Buick on the GM “Ladder of Success” in 1968 was the Oldsmobile Division, and the king of Olds B-Bodies that 12 months was the Delta 88 Custom Holiday Sedan four-door hardtop. Today’s Junkyard Gem is considered one of those cars, present…
Recently, we took a have a look at a solid late-production Chevy Corvair coupe in a Denver junkyard, and a few readers couldn’t consider that anybody would throw away such a rare classic. Hold onto your hats, Corvair fans, because eight Corvairs just showed up within the inventory of a yard in Colorado Springs. Because we just saw a coupe from the ultimate couple of years of Corvair production, I’ve chosen an early four-door sedan from the eightsome to follow it in this series. U-Pull-&-Pay got the model years mistaken for many of those cars of their system, probably because…
When Chevrolet introduced the Camaro for the 1967 model 12 months, Pontiac got its own version at the identical time (in contrast to Mercury, which had to attend just a few years to begin selling Mustang-sibling Cougars). This was the Firebird, which stayed in production until each it and the Camaro were discontinued after the 2002 model 12 months. Today’s Junkyard Gem is a base Firebird coupe from the ultimate fourth generation, present in a Colorado automobile graveyard recently. Lately, first- and second-generation (1967-1969 and 1970-1981) Firebirds are all but inconceivable to seek out in the massive self-service wrecking yards,…
Chrysler killed off the wagon versions of the Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart compacts in america after 1966, which meant that the one latest small station wagons offered through the center Nineteen Seventies by American Dodge and Plymouth dealers were the Mitsubishi-built Colt and the Hillman-built Cricket. Meanwhile, American Motors was doing pretty much selling Hornet Sportabouts, so something needed to be done. That something turned out to be the Dodge Aspen and its Plymouth Volaré sibling, which debuted as 1976 models and included longroof versions. We saw a discarded Volaré wagon in glorious brown a few years back, and…
When General Motors created the Geo brand to sell vehicles designed and — in some cases — built by Japanese partners, the primary 4 models were introduced for the 1989 model 12 months: the Metro (Suzuki Cultus), Prizm (Toyota Sprinter), Spectrum (Isuzu Gemini) and Tracker (Suzuki Sidekick). Geo got the axe in 1997, with the Metro, Prizm and Tracker becoming Chevrolets. Of those, the Tracker survived the longest, with U.S.-market sales continuing into 2004. Here’s an example of a really late Tracker, present in a North Carolina automobile graveyard recently. The 1989-1997 first-generation Trackers were based on the Suzuki Sidekick,…
