Ryan,all I can say is I really feel sorry for your wife.

 

i LOVE junk yards! vintage yards are almost all gone around me especially after scrap went sky high last year!
and punch your friend in the mouth for me he might show some respect in the "grave yard"!

 

Most of the "good yards" are gone around here,too. I also enjoy "junking". Every vehicle in a yard has some story...good or bad. I don't get too hung up on that aspect because I'm too busy scoping out what I need / want. Getting tougher all the time to score anything good for these older cars...esp. after last yr. and high prices for steel. Still, it IS fun to go looking around.

 

If I was at one with a lot of classic and a friend of mine was rocking cars I would hit him.:yes:

 

Me too, All of my vehicles are like part of my family! I've always felt like that if you treat it right, it will treat you right. I love to go to salvage yards too, it's hard to describe the feeling that I get especially in the older yards, also when I look around I think of the gold mines and all of the little parts that are still salvagable, like stainless that just needs polishing, and just knowing that someone is probably looking for one of these parts right now.

 

i have a strange connection to cars. i can't keep my hands off older cars. if it's really old, i like to sit in all the seats, look everywhere, i cook up scenarios about where the earlier owners might be, or try to picture the day they rode home in the car when new. cars are history, time machines, to me, they are living breathing art, and it consumes a good part of my life....

 

I pretty much feel the same way. Each car has it's history and I always wonder why it made it into the junkyard.

I was in Rhode Island last year to buy a car and we went to yard not far from Providence. They had quite a few oldies in there. My friend was laughing at me for wanting to take pics.

Click to enlarge.

 

I have always felt that the best possible training for an archeologist would be to take "field trips" to a local junkyard.

Dinosaurs are dinosaurs. Not much difference between cataloging billion-year-old bones buried under clay and rock and dirt vs. researching old cars that haven't moved in thirty years. The benefit is that you don't have to dig them out of the ground; or have to ultrasound the area to even find the carcasses. The rest is pretty much the same--you look at the carcass, you note the surroundings; you analyze the contents of the interior--all of that would be excellent training for a bone digger.

I see evidence of folks vandalizing the salvage yard cars. Makes me sick. I don't even like the idea of the Yard workers removing parts with a cutting torch or saws-all.

The local Yard owners know me by name and remember my various project cars. I try to tromp through the Yards a couple of times a year.

I always leave wishing I could buy all the cars and restore 'em. I'm clearly nuts.

 

Well, i'm glad Ryan posted this cause I thought I was the only nutcase like that. Looks like a few others are the same boat!
I got attached to a car my parents had when I was a kid. A 68 Ford wagon with a 390. My Dad purchased it in 68 when I was 8. It was almost brand new but rolled. Roof damage was about it. Me and my brother played in that car while my Dad was fixing it for about month. Then, when that car was on the road, for about 10 years, it took us everywhere. Cedar Point many times, camping up north so many times so loaded down with mini bikes, camping equipment, fishing gear, ect., he couldnt see out the back windows. We were jammed in there like sardines. Usually cousins or neighbor kids would come along.
Anyway, when he decided to sell that car , I was bummed out. Even though I was about 18. Just remembering all the good times that car took us to. And also thinking it didnt have much time left cause it was getting petty rusty but it still ran like a clock.
No way could I load that car into the crusher!

 

I love wandering through junkyards. You never know what you're going to come across in one. I've driven 45 minutes to one just to walk around and see if anything new has come in. The same yard has yielded ALOT or original parts for the Charger as well as my 70 convertible.

 

We have a couple that still have older cars. I've always liked walking salvage yards just remembering those types of old cars when they were still on the road and imagining who might have owned it and what it looked like in it's useful days.
Every once in a while I run across one I recognize that someone I knew owned and a couple times one I have owned. Did that about 15 years ago when I found what was left of my old 66 Lemans. Now that was depressing!:sad:

 

If only they could talk, what would they say?

 

I'd love to know what the 69 Charger in the junkyard I've been scavenging parts off of would say. It's roof is caved in and there is another car on top ot it.

 

Ok,serious question. Where do you guys find these yards where you can walk around? All the ones in my surrounding area are fenced and guarded. Yes I would like to do that again,it was one of my most favorite things to do as a kid.

 

You have to get to know the owners now-a-days. A lot of owners won't allow people in their yards just for this very reason. Back in Tennessee and Louisiana a lot of people thought I worked in the various yards because I was there a lot, had free roam, and even helped pull a part or two. These yards wouldn't allow the average Joe to walk through, but I always walked through the office, greeted the counter guy, (sometimes the owner of the yard) and told them I was gonna look around for a while and then walk out the back door into the yard. A little friendliness and respect go a long way for getting the part you really need.:thumbsup:


oh, and for the record, .....yes, I feel the same way and would have lit into my friend disrespecting the dead like that.

 

This topic reminds me of a story my Dad told me about when he was fixing up his '50 Chevy (in the mid-70s). He was looking for a piece of quarter-panel trim, and took a friend along with him. His buddy got bored while they were walking around, and he picked up a baseball-sized rock and threw it in the air as high as he could. Dad watched as it landed right on the top edge of a '50 Chevy's quarter-panel, denting the piece of trim Dad went there to get. He left a little pissed off after that.

 

you need a new buddy

 

feel the same way.
sad state of affairs.. .and you wonder when looking in the old cars and sitting in them whose lives were in there.. did they make out? Did they get engaged? Did they drive to a funeral? etc....

 

You have to wonder how many lives were actually conceived in some of them old cars especially back in the days of big cars with big back seats and drive in movie theaters! :yes:

 

I love going to junk yards! When I see all of those cars I see potential for them to either come back to life or help another car come back to life.

 

grandsport, there is a yard called Eanglers in nuengola (spelling?) alot of stuff is rusty but still cool to go and look around. I was there last year and the guy was talking about crushing some of them so I would do a search and call before making a trip.

 

I have always walked through and thought about thier owners too. Many times, I have found myself rummaging through various cars in junkyards just to see just what I may find in there. Yards dont typically remove everything from the cars and its intresting to see the stuff you find inside the interior or trunk of some of these cars.