To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, so much depends upon the price of scrap metal. Back in 2014, word on the internet grapevine was that a well-known old-school junkyard in Michigan was “crushing out”; therefore, I made one last trip to pick up a few parts. Soon after that, scrap prices fell and the yard shut down the crusher, so I was able to make a return trip in 2015. I haven’t been back since, but I assume everything is gone but memories. Please enjoy a large group of photos from that warm fall day several years ago.
You never know what you’re going to find in the junkyard; for example, you may see an inquisitive weasel making its home behind a Slant Six as you’re pulling a metering rod, jet, and spring from a frozen Carter BBS. My wife and I made a trip back the next year, as did my parents, to get some more parts and take some more “last” pictures. Maybe some other time I’ll upload those.
In the meantime, feel free to revisit some other tales of my time in the salvage yard.
CC Junkyard Haul: Mono No Aware
Junkyard Outtake: 1962 and 1963 Thunderbirds – Holding Hands on the Way to the Gallows
Junkyard Outtake: 1961 Pontiac Tempest–The Rare Wood-Powered Prototype
Junkyard Outtake: 1972 Mercury Monterey Custom–No Perks for Being a Wallflower
Junkyard Classics: Segregating the Outcasts – Hudsons and Packards Get to Know Simcas and Anglias
Junkyard Classic: 1960 Edsel Villager — This Orphan Would Take a Village to Raise
Scrap must be up now, theres been a lot of activity lately and many loads of dead cars on the roads here, all those shiny used imports getting re-exported only to come back as something else
The 1969 license plate on the ‘55 Buick indicates it came here after 15 years, it’s useful life over. Not too bad for a car of the fifties, which were usually finished in 10 years and rarely reached 100,000 miles.
Compare that to today, where the AVERAGE age of a vehicle on the road is 12.3 years and 200k plus miles is not uncommon.
Yes, they don’t build them like they used to.
Two of the remaining junkyards of this type (cars w/ trees growing through/around them) in my area have also shut down, and after some time, both have now re-opened…BUT, as Copart yards!! 🙁
Wow, some fabulous cars there but after 50+ years in the wet grass I don’t see much usable there anymore.
I’d try to drag that 46-48 Mercury home, I can just smell the rotting upholstery from my childhood experiences with these.
All the stainless trim is still good, as well as glass, especially the rear glass. I see thousands of dollars of potential sales of good parts. Sad, all gone now.
I felt really helpless on these visits; I tried to remind myself that you can’t save ’em all! Still…
In the picture that’s asking “any ideas?”, it looks like a late 50’s Chevy step van to me.
Junkyard? I think not. This reminds me clearly of a dump and nothing more. A dump containing cars, instead of general debris, but still a dump.
Not everyone can afford to buy mint condition cars for top dollar like you. Those on a budget could have used these parts for their project cars.
Don’t put words in my mouth and think you know what I was thinking as you obviously missed the entire point. There are car junkyards I’ve been to and there are car dumps and this is a dump plain and simple with few decent parts. These cars are rotting.
I see more evidence way down below.
The pictures clearly show an entire row of Corvairs carefully lined up. If this were a “dump” they would have just thrown all the cars in a big pile to accumulate to be rapidly crushed. Your elitist view that all the vehicles should be parked in clean big buildings with all the parts carefully shelved and marked shows that you have no idea what a small business on a budget has to deal with to save old cars. You’ve never went to a wrecking yard searching for rare parts, or you’d appreciate what this guy tried to do. So I assume that you are rich and only buy turn key mint cars. Or have zero interest in the old car hobby to start with. Real car nuts have fun buying project cars and searching for parts in places just like this, and are grateful that some individual had the foresight to save these cars.
I can’t tell if the second ’56 Olds (“More BOPs”) is a 98 or 88. I believe the flat top Cadillac is a ’60, because the side trim is down low.
As much as I find chops and slams annoying, at least the cars didn’t end up here–yet.
Liking me some 1970 Impale.
Thanks for taking us along on this adventure. Sad to see so many cars in this derelict state, never to see the road, or a car show, again.
That white Camaro in the Chevy section looks entirely out of place. The rust present on every other car appears to be largely absent on this one. It is one of the few cars from the ’70s-’80s shown here.
Yards like this have largely disappear here in Western New York because the cars had reached the same beyond salvage status from the weathering and neglect. A friend and I used to tour them, I referred to it as “the permanent car show’ fully realizing the irony of that statement.
This is the wake-up call to secure a favorite make and year then maintain and enjoy it now.
That 1st photo (Cadillac) is really haunting!
There was a time when I could visit lots of local places that had old cars (30s-60s) abandoned in the woods like that, but they’re mostly gone now. If I discover any other such places, I’ll photograph them and make a new CC post!
Below: A a monster lurks behind the next tree . . . [New Windsor, NY; August 2021]
Neat Bird!
I love tours like this. That Studebaker Hawk looks to be the high-value supercharged Golden Hawk from 1957-58 – one of the few postwar Studes worth money now. But the way it’s bent makes it look like the frame and the rest of the lower body is toast.
I always feel especially sad when I see a convertible in this state – if anything could have been economically saved it would have been one of those, like that 57 Buick near the top.
I wasn’t sure if the Hawk was a Silver Hawk or a Golden Hawk. Here’s a front shot I found in my 2015 file – I think you may be right.
My favorite “tinfoil hat” conspiracy theory goes like this…
Since so much of Michigan’s economy is/was dependent on the automobile industry, Michigan DOT put extra, extra salt on the roads so cars would rust out faster, sending owners back to buy yet another new car. Salt is cheap compared to the boost in the economy that rotted-out cars provide.
Funny you should mention that because just this week I came across a Michigan DOT study from the early 1980s that compared road salt use among states (I’m researching for a future article on rustproofing, which is how I stumbled across it).
I was surprised that Michigan wasn’t far and away at the top of this list, but still, 15 tons of salt per lane-mi. of state roads is A LOT of salt. Seemed like back then, New England states were actually the heaviest per-capita salt users. I have no idea how this – or the difference between states – has changed over the recent decades.
All I can say is that the last time I was in Michigan, 2017, I was still seeing 3-5 year old trucks with rotted-out cab corners and rockers.
I sometimes watch “South Main Auto” on YouTube; he’s a mechanic from upstate NY, and the cars he works on might even be rustier than Michigan stuff. Trying to keep your car anything but a salty mess around here in January and February is a losing battle; it’s almost impossible to keep a car clean. That’s one of the reasons why my daily driver is a ten-year-old Focus; I’d have a hard time subjecting something fun to certain destruction.
Holy smokes, that’s a lot of salt! Let’s do some math: a standard highway lane is a tetch over 12 feet wide, so a lane-mile is 12 × 5,280 feet, or 63,360 square feet.
15 tons is 30 kilopounds.
30,000 ÷ 63,360 = 0.47 lbs of salt per square foot. Uhh…yeah, that surely seems like probably a whole hell of a lot more than necessary.
In that season alone, Michigan DOT used 400,000 tons of road salt. And that’s just for state-maintained roads… presumably localities that maintained their own roads used still more in addition to that.
I think Evan’s got a point.
The numbers need to be transposed, giving “only” 0.47 pounds per square foot. It still seems like a whole hell of a lot more than necessary.
Oh, oops, derp. Right you are, thanks for catching that. Fixed now! Yeah, still, half a pound of salt per 12″ × 12″ square is just a staggering amount of the stuff!
Eric, you mentioned that you were doing an article on rustproofing. My ’74 Firebird is a Michigan car that was Ziebarted by the original owners; it has comparatively little underbody rust, but every fastener was as hard to deal with as on any Michigan car. Regardless, if it hadn’t have had the rustproofing, I’m sure the floors and subframes would have been long gone, and there’s no evidence that they’ve been repaired in any way. The bottom is crusty, and they undercoated EVERYWHERE, including the door jambs and engine compartment, but it must have done something right.
That’s interesting to hear. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on the value of those rustproofing services, but good bit of what I’ve read has pointed to Ziebart having delivered the best results.
That’s not necessarily due to the product itself (most of the rustproofing solutions were rather similar… basically crude oil with additives), but the difference had more to do with the care with which it was applied. Ziebart franchises did their own work, and sort of specialized in rustproofing (until the late 1980s when that market collapsed). They tended to be experienced and thorough. Meanwhile, most of the other rustproofing services were applied by car dealerships. Often, the stuff was applied carelessly, missing spots underneath the car and doing only a cursory spray inside body panels where they drilled holes.
For the dealers, it was pure profit, and any warranty claims were handled by the rustproofing company (and their warranties were lousy anyway), so there was little incentive for the dealers to do thorough work. From what I’ve read, Ziebart seemed to attract less criticism in that regard.
My rustproofing story….in the mid ’80’s, had the pleasure of a summer at the local PentaStar dealer, was an official certifed applicator for the Rusty Jones rust proofing system. I think I had one hands-on training on a Turismo. The fluid used looked like sticky clay, applicator was a narrow wand on a spray paint rig, we used the weep holes on the doors, drain holes in the body, had to make sure that there was reasonable overspray to show it was applied, but be careful, you only had 1 quart. Special paint protectant, fancy paste wax. I think it was worth $300-400 then, dealers made out like bandits. By the late ’80’s, the party was over quick, claims wiped them out.
Thanks for that story — that’s a great first-hand account… pretty much parallels what a lot of folks suspected back in the 1980s.
A number of states investigated dealer rustproofing practices back then and concluded that the industry had serious credibility problem. New York’s attorney general’s investigation concluded that dealer rustproofing was “essentially worthless” — and that’s a strong term from one of the most rust-prone states.
Warranty claims did wipe many of those companies out, but so did better factory rustproofing, which became better than any aftermarket job.
Eric, for comparison, I have it on good authority the Missouri DOT only uses about 200 pounds per lane mile. And that is often cut 50/50 with abrasives.
15 tons per lane mile would break some states. The same authority told me salt here runs from $65 to $90 per ton (depending upon county, due to the way it is bid) – so that is an eye-popping amount per lane mile.
I heard on the radio that during the snow storm here last week, there was 12,000 tons used on the state system – in a snow fleet that covered over 1,000,000 miles.
That’s interesting. From what I’ve read, the use of road salt became common in the 1950s, and by 1970 was a billion-dollar-per-year industry in the US alone.
You know more about this than I do, but it seems that there was a movement among DOTs in the 1960s called the “bare pavement” philosophy stressing how snow and ice should be removed as quickly as possible (which was only feasible through salt), and even heavy expenditures in salt would be more than offset by savings due to fewer traffic accidents. I suspect the salt industry had more than small role in popularizing that philosophy.
I like this 1960 ad from a company selling a calcium chloride/salt mixture (undoubtedly much more expensive than salt alone, and maybe just as environmentally harmful):
The current thinking is grape and apple squeezings to reduce salt usage.
Eric, looking at it another way…a tandem axle dump truck holds about 15 tons. With a spreader, a bit less, about 13 or so. So in the early ’80s, it sounds like the Michigan DOT was spreading a tandem’s worth of salt per lane mile. Even if over the course of an entire winter, that is still a lot.
Daniel, I had not heard about the grape and apple squeezing, but it makes sense. I am quite familiar with the beet juice mentioned.
It is sad to see these cars that have survived for so long reaching the end of their useful lives, even as parts sources. These rural wrecking yards survived because there was enough demand for the parts and operating expenses were low enough to keep them economically viable. Lately there have been a lot of government movement at blight eradication especially as outlying areas have become more desirable for development. The land has become more valuable and desirable than the cars sitting on it.
The future does not bode well for these type of old fashioned yards. Paul had a post about the old wrecker in California’s Central Valley. Though there was more organization and many parts were protected in building and sheds, it would be difficult to categorize all available parts in an on line format.
I agree that if you really want an older car, it’s best to get one soon.
I understand that things happen to some cars rendering them impossible to repair and be returned to the road. I do not understand, comprehend or begin to know why some cars, like many of these, for a much lesser reasons, are left outside (anywhere), to rust and decay, rendering them impossible to restore and return to the road. How could an owner of a place like this allow this to happen? Why wasn’t the owner of this place actively trying to get the cars to new owners who would restore them, or in the least use the car for donor parts? Or, was the owner proud of his collection letting them rot away, no concern for their soul, what they once were and could possibly be again. It is totally beyond me. I can’t even bear to look at these cars.
Wow Clark, you don’t seem to understand the basics of the limited life cycle of automobiles, and where do they go when they quit running or are no longer wanted. When a vehicle is at end of life, it can’t just sit where it is. So it goes to a wrecking yard, or recycling center. Some of them quickly crush and shred the vehicles. Some of them park the vehicles in storage so that customers can purchase needed parts. This particular place accumulated the vehicles and we can guess that the purpose was to provide parts or sell the vehicles. Maybe the owner wasn’t skilled at selling them or buyers didn’t show up. I don’t think you can condemn the owner for what he attempted to do. Perhaps if he hadn’t saved them, they would have been crushed 40 years earlier, denying customers the parts they needed.
The first time I visited the yard was when I was in high school in the mid-’90s. The owner was an elderly man who had certainly owned the yard a long time (if I recall correctly, his dad had started the business). Needless to say, when I went back in the early 2000s looking for a washer pump for my ’65 Skylark, I believe he charged me $20 for an example that was in pretty bad shape. Mix borderline “top dollar” prices, rural geography, and a pre-internet, pre-LKQ business model, and there you have it.
With that being said, I was really sad going through the yard the last time.
Well, buildings cost money to build and maintain, for starters (…and alternators, carburetors, engines, bumpers, rear axles, brake drums, glass, doors, fenders, entire cars…)
It’s Michigan, these cars were most definitely terminally rusty when they got there, and that’s not something most people can properly fix, afford to fix pr are willing to fix unless the car has significance. Parts are missing from many of these cars, you can rest assured that while these ones didn’t make it, there’s a car somewhere still rolling because it was repaired or restored using part from one of these.
As a resident of West Michigan, I can not find a auto body shop around here that will do any rust repair on cars and trucks anymore. It’s always worse than it looks and much too labor intensive for them to tackle for a profit compared to crash repair.
Crash repair can be done more quickly, is much more lucrative income wise, and there is more than enough of that kind of work around here as it is. All this told to me by local auto body repairmen.
Embora Brasileiro e nunca tenha visitado outro país, sei exatamente como se sentem todos que aqui se expressaram neste post, me senti transportado às duas épocas, porque também passei por algo parecido ao longo dos meus cinquenta e sete anos …… Bons tempos…. Abraços à todos antigomobilistas de todas as idades….
Thanks so much for sharing this. I love old junkyards, and have explored a few.
The most recent one, which I visited a few times about 5 years ago, has since been fully scrapped out. It seems to have closed in the 70s. The most prominent feature to my eyes was a pink Edsel right by the road. Deeper inside were many interesting vehicles, mostly from the 50s to the 70s.
I’m hoping that my pictures survived, but fear that I may have lost them.
This particular yard had long been a problem because it was located next to a stream, and must have put its share of automotive fluids into the soil and water over the years. State environmental authorities had long been on the owner to clean up his property, and he resisted, even though the yard closed long ago. I’m not sure who paid for the cleanup.
Though I miss the old cars and the thrill of exploring the yard, I don’t think that there was much worth saving, and the area is better off without its environmental effects.
This also brings back fond memories from a cool junkyard I frequented about 20 years ago when I lived in Birmingham AL. It was a truck and heavy equipment salvage yard. It had apparently closed down not too long before I noticed it because, though access was easy, it had not yet been vandalized.
It had a lot of garbage and fire trucks as well as airport vehicles, primarily from the 70s and 80s, with some older. I recall a truck with wooden doors as being the oldest specimen. They also had some giant spiky metal wheels from landfill compactors. I spent many happy hours exploring that yard and the associated buildings. I was into black and white photography back then, so my photographs made the place seem spooky and old.
You got me started, and the memories are flowing. Here is my final contribution to the thread.
Another favorite salvage yard, which called out to me for many years before I finally made the time to explore it, was a heavy equipment yard near where I used to live. It was chock full of bulldozers, loaders, cranes and road machinery in various stages of disassembly, and was just visible from the highway.
I only went in one time, but the scale of the machinery made it a very memorable experience. This place, unlike the others, also holds a strange sentimental value for me because the company that my father worked for (though several states away) used to buy parts from there so that he could keep their older machines running. Sadly, it was scrapped out a couple of years ago, and the property is in the process of being repurposed.
Another nice picture article that makes me sad, I grew up in New England and the salt ate up everything, once it’s paper thin it may not have a scratch nor dent on it but there’s no possible way to bring most of them back .
I too see scads of unobtanium stainless trims, radios, knobs , brake drums and other useful things but getting them off and to the Western & Southern Auto Jumbles is a lot of work, only those who have done it will ever understand .
When I ran a tiny junkyard I didn’t give a hoot about how much it co$t new, I wanted it -gone-, how much $ is in your pocket right now ? .
Most junkyard owners / countermen are greedy and have little reality ~ they sit on cars & parts for a decade then sell it all for under a dollar a pound as scrap then complain when they could have made good $ selling to the always broke kids then selling the left over unrusted sheet metal and Frames .
These rusty relics have little scrap value as the sheet metal is mostly just iron oxide .
Please keep posting articles like this one ! .
-Nate