America’s self-service junkyards are a gearhead’s dream come true

There are two ways to look at a self-service junkyard.

For some, it’s merely a gigantic, open-air convenience store that sells anything from a fuse to a complete engine and the transmission it shifts through. For others, it’s an amusement park that may as well be called Gearhead’s Paradise. Anyone can pay a dollar to spend hours wandering through row after row of derelict classics and mistreated late-model vehicles. It’s a fascinating way to learn about cars, how they’re built and the people that drive them.

Join us for a virtual stroll through the snow-covered junkyards in the American Midwest.

Pick it yourself

Documenting the history of the self-service junkyard would be a career on its own. The basic business model has been around for decades, and there are yards scattered all across America. Most charge an entry fee, though it’s usually only a dollar or two. Once you’re in, you’re free to pick and pull (hence the name Pick-n-Pull) anything you need, want or find remotely interesting. You’ll pay for it on your way out. Remember to bring your own set of tools.

Recycling wheels

Most junkyards weld a pair of steel wheels together to create a relatively sturdy jack stand. They drop cars on three or four makeshift stands to let customers crawl underneath if needed. We’ve seen cars collapse before, though. It’s always a good idea to plan additional support for working under a car.

Section by section

Yards are normally split up into different sections. Often times, European and Asian cars get lumped into a single import section. Detroit’s big three each get assigned a section, while trucks and vans are tucked in their own corner of the lot. This system greatly facilitates the task of finding a car - and its parts.

XJ; from the Jeep to the Jaguar

In America, the junkyard is the common afterlife that awaits nearly every car regardless of how much it cost new. Here, a Jaguar XJ X300 basks in the chilly Detroit sun next to a Honda Civic. It looks like it’s in reasonably good shape for a luxury sedan that recently lost its “late-model” label but a closer inspection reveals rust has started to chew away at the bottom parts of it.

Life aboard

Digital odometers make it all but impossible to tell how many miles a car has covered. But, all things considered, this XJ’s interior has held up remarkably well. Spending a significant amount of time in Detroit, where the temperature remains moderate in the summer, helped its leather bits stay smooth.

NGV

The XJ’s neighbor isn’t your run-of-the-mill Civic. Green stickers on the rear doors indicate it’s an NGV model powered by natural gas. Honda went to great lengths to push natural gas technology but it never caught on. Most examples ended up in the hands of fleet buyers like the City of Los Angeles, though Honda sold the gas-powered Civic to the public in a handful of states. The firm stopped investing in natural gas technology in 2015 to focus on hybrid vehicles.

Not-so-New Beetle

Volkswagen’s New Beetle turned 20 late last year. Two decades’ worth of continuous use is beginning to strike early examples off the road. We noticed a surprising amount of them in junkyards. Most looked like they had been driven into the ground by a succession of increasingly merciless owners. With flaking green paint and hazy headlights, this example is no exception.

Crashing out

Let’s dispel a myth: Older Mercedes-Benz sedans aren’t bullet-proof. Not quite. They also end up in junkyards but typically much later than other models from the same era. This low-mileage example could have kept going for years had it not suffered an encounter with a heavy object. The photo doesn’t show the full extent of the damage; we’d have scrapped it, too.

The sound of depreciation

Listen, do you hear that? It’s the sound of depreciation. The W222-generation S500 cost $77,850 in 2000, its first year on the American market. That’s about $112,000 in today’s money. The person who sent this rusty early example to celebrate its 18th birthday in an Ohio junkyard got, best case scenario, about $150 for his or her troubles. That wouldn’t have covered the cost of an option.

Patterns

You begin to notice patterns after spending enough time meandering through self-service junkyards. We observed Subaru models built in the early 2000s tend to die right around 200,000 miles. The ones driven through harsh winters rust exceptionally well, too. This Outback ticks both boxes.

Automotive variety

Junkyards receive new cars every day. You never know what you’ll find. Here, we’re looking at a Volvo C70, a Volkswagen Passat, a Volvo 240 and a Nissan Maxima parked on the same row. If you go back a month from now they will all be gone and replaced by the next crop of parts donors.

Sweden’s favorite wagon

Like most older Mercedes-Benz models, Volvo’s brick-shaped 240 suffers from rust and a bomb-proof reputation that convinces some owners regular maintenance intervals are little more than ballpark suggestions. 240 parts are becoming increasingly sought-after as the number of enthusiasts interested in keeping these emblematic cars on the road continues to grow.

Classics unite

The bigger junkyards set aside part of their property for classic cars. It’s the most interesting part of the lot, at least if you treat junkyards like an amusement park and not a parts store. Vintage vehicles normally get scrapped after someone yanked them out of a back yard, a garage or a warehouse. Here, a Mercedes-Benz W123 rubs elbows with a first-generation Chrysler LeBaron.

Squashing the Beetle

Volkswagen of America stopped selling the Beetle in 1979 so the newest examples are quickly approaching their 40th birthday. It sounds like their junkyard days should be over. And yet, Americans bought so many of them (and the Beetle was worth so little for so long) that it’s not uncommon to find one in a junkyard in 2018. The example pictured here is a Super Beetle.

Signs of a rough life

As Beetle values continue to climb, the ones that end up beached in junkyards become rougher and rougher. This Super Beetle illustrates the trend. Its floors and rocker panels have either rotted out, been cut out or a combination of the two. Still, there are always salvageable parts. This car retained its flat-four engine and four-speed manual transmission. Neither had been cracked open.

Automotive archaeology

Part of the fun of going to the junkyard is figuring out what brought a car there. Sometimes it’s obvious. There is no question rust convinced this W114 280E’s last owner to take it off the road. The underbody looked like Swiss cheese. We’re surprised the yard workers managed to balance it up in the air.

Region by region

You can tell where you are in America just by looking at the cars around you. Travel to California and you’ll inevitably find a substantial number of Asian and European cars in junkyards. In Detroit, where we took this photo, American cars continue to reign supreme as they reach the end of their lives.

Mustard Mustang

Not every example of the Ford Mustang commands big bucks at classic car auctions. Models built in the early 1970s (like this one) are generally shunned by enthusiasts because they’re much bigger and correspondingly heavier than earlier cars. Some of the later cars don’t fare much better.

Fox body

The third-generation Mustang is another model encountering strong headwinds as it attempts to jump aboard the classic car ship. Early examples remain some of the most under-powered and uninspiring cars ever to wear the Mustang name. Early on in the production run, the base cars came with a 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine rated at just 88hp.

Hold my beer and watch this

We noticed this stellar example of hold-my-beer engineering on an early Fox body Mustang. It’s a seemingly quick and simple way to fix a door latch problem with only six rivets. Unfortunately, the red stripes that run down the side of the car suggest the person carrying out the repair didn’t take the door’s alignment into consideration before drilling into the body panels.

The three Capris

The Mercury Capri took on many forms. The original model was very nearly identical to the Ford Capri sold in Europe. The second-generation model was a Fox body Mustang clone. For its third generation, like this one pictured, the Capri morphed into a small, front-wheel drive roadster Ford sourced from its Australian division.

Executives optimistically envisioned it as Mercury’s answer to the original Mazda MX-5 Miata. From hindsight, that was like comparing an Autobianchi Bianchina to an Alfa Romeo Spider. Early examples suffered from a leaky soft top, which slowed sales. Pricing started at $12,588 in 1990, while Mazda charged $13,800 for a Miata that same year. Those figures convert to $23,900 and $26,200, respectively.

Shooting a Laser

Chrysler introduced the front-wheel drive Laser in 1984 as “a definitive statement of motion technology.” Also billed as the company’s first sports car, it was a re-badged Dodge Daytona with a nicer interior. The brand hoped to lure buyers away from European and Asian coupes by undercutting its rivals on price, a technique Detroit’s big three mastered in the 1980s.

The top-spec Laser XE retailed for $10,546 (about $25,000) in 1984, a figure which placed it in the same price bracket as an entry-level Mazda RX-7. Base models locked horns with the Renault Fuego.

Peeking inside

In its defense, Chrysler tried hard to make the Laser a pleasant place to travel in. This example features sport seats for the front passengers, a combination of fake and real leather upholstery, sporty-looking gauges and a cassette player. It undoubtedly made someone proud when it was brand-new. We wonder what the original owner would think if he or she could see it today.

Like a sore thumb

This bright red Chevrolet Camaro adds a touch of color to an otherwise dull landscape. The third-generation Camaro (and its Pontiac-badged twin, the Firebird) are at the bottom of their depreciation curve. They’re ending up in junkyards by the truckload, often in puzzlingly forlorn condition.

Detroit’s X1/9

The Pontiac Fiero is another 1980s icon that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. It’s true, early models weren’t great to drive – they certainly weren’t as engaging as the Fiat-turned-Bertone X1/9 or the Toyota MR2. Pontiac improved the later cars (like the one pictured here) but it was too little, too late. Interestingly, the brand planned significant updates for the 1990 model year. It stopped the project in its tracks in the wake of slow sales and waning profits.

Future classic

The fourth-generation Ford Mustang doesn’t get much love these days. It’s one of the most inexpensive routes to take for enthusiasts who want to put a V8-powered sports car in their driveway. Like we previously mentioned, most regular-production Mustang models get stuck in a rut as they age. Some don’t make it out, but we think the fourth-generation cars will emerge from it soon and become more desirable. Our advice is to buy one cheap while you still can.

Fleet favorite

The soft-riding Chevrolet Caprice was a favorite among fleet buyers in the 1980s. Taxi drivers and law enforcement agencies across America and Canada bought these old-fashioned, body-on-frame behemoths because they held up well to all types of abuse day in, day out.

Unfortunately, fleet buyers aren’t the kindest car owners in the automotive landscape. They poached a significant chunk of the Caprice population. It has become uncommon at best today, even in junkyards. This partially dismantled example was privately owned, though it wasn’t spared.

XXL

The Buick Roadmaster Estate was one of the biggest cars sold new in America in the early 1990s. It was huge, and hugely underpowered early on. In 1990, the model’s first year on the market, Roadmaster buyers settled for a 5.0-liter V8 rated at 170hp. Power increased to 260hp later in the production run, which ended in 1996, thanks to a modified version of the Chevrolet Corvette’s LT1 V8.

Buick decided not to replace the Roadmaster Estate. Rivals had already abandoned the segment so America’s super-sized, barge-like body-on-frame station wagon died with it. 

Concours

In the 1990s, the Cadillac DeVille stood out as one of the most gloriously imposing cars on American roads. It was a status symbol, one that boomed “I’ve got it made but I’m not buying German.” The model pictured here is no ordinary DeVille, though. The emblems on the front doors identify it as a Concours model, meaning it was the range-topping DeVille. This leather-lined, wood-trimmed studio apartment on wheels retailed for $36,590 new in 1994, which represents about $61,000 today.

The old dictum that claims moss grows only on the north side of a tree evidently doesn’t apply to a Cadillac. Moss started to stake its claim on both sides of this DeVille. 

Bygone brands

In the American Midwest, junkyards carry an impressive catalog of cars made by companies that no longer exist. The model pictured here with space-savers in lieu of normal front wheels is a post-facelift Saturn L-Series. It’s one of the cars that emerged from General Motors’ futile, 20-year long attempt at fending off competition from Japanese car-makers.

On Mercury

It’s easy to forget Mercury made the Montego. It was based on the Ford Five Hundred, another large sedan buyers either didn’t notice or completely ignored. Mercury sold fewer than 70,000 examples of the Montego over a four-year long production run and the remaining examples are dropping like flies. Who knows; in four decades’ time, the Montego might be considered a rare classic.

Badge-engineered

The Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight shared its platform and numerous mechanical components with the Pontiac Bonneville and the Buick LeSabre. It wore an Oldsmobile-specific design on both ends, though all three variants offered the same pillow-soft ride and cavernous interior. Walking through junkyards suggests Eighty-Eight buyers really liked the color maroon.

Best-seller

As America’s best-selling vehicle, the Ford F-150 is a common sight across the nation. It’s also a permanent fixture in junkyards. Like most pickups, F-150s tend to fall into the hands of owners who drive them until they’re held together with duct tape and wire, scrap them and move on to their next truck. Rust – a recurring theme here – also takes its toll on the frame.

Beating the odds

In America, the average age of a vehicle still on the road is about 11.6 years old. This first-generation Dodge Ram pickup beat the odds. Built in 1986, it roamed rural Michigan’s scenic highways until its 32nd birthday. Most of its peers ended up crushed into cubes long ago. Some even had the time to get recycled into a new truck and end up smashed a second time.

Controversial in life and death

The Pontiac Aztek was unloved when it was new, it’s still unloved as a used car and it’s unloved even at the junkyard. Many examples (like this one) stay intact after spending weeks out on the lot. No one needs Aztek parts, it turns out. That’s slowly changing. We’ve noticed some owners are beginning to preserve their Aztek.

Sweet home Alabama

Mercedes-Benz manufactured the original ML in Alabama. This example traveled north to Detroit, as the first-sized rust holes in the front doors indicate. The ML shares many mechanical components with other members of the Mercedes line-up so the examples that end up in junkyards get stripped quickly. 

It’s a Jeep thing

Bigger, more complicated Jeep models (like the second-generation Grand Cherokee pictured above) are a dime a dozen in junkyards. Other models, such as the XJ-generation Cherokee and the original Liberty, aren’t impossible to find. You’ll be hard-pressed to spot a Wrangler, though. Even the most unsalvageable examples get claimed by hardcore off-roaders seeking a new project and resurrected as rock crawlers. 

Rusted through

Rust is a major problem in some parts of America. The tons of salt dumped on roads annually to melt snow and ice chew through every metal part that makes up a car, sending some models to the junkyard well before they suffer a major mechanical breakdown. This second-generation Dodge Dakota is missing part of its fender and a decent-sized chunk of its front bumper.

Hidden treasures

Some people don’t bother to empty out their car before sending it to the junkyard. Look through enough vehicles and you’re bound to find something interesting, like this Panasonic portable CD player we stumbled upon on the front seat of a Cadillac. It was certainly cheaper than replacing the car’s in-dash CD player. Do you think it still works?

And finally...

We’re often surprised by the number of cars that managed to keep their original owner’s manual until the end of their lives. In 1994, the Cadillac Seville’s manual came in a leather-bound case that also included a pen, a small notepad and a calculator – all Cadillac-branded, of course.