The Junkyard Junkie
To me, there is one true, non-negotiable, infallable, surefire and foolproof way to tell if you are a real car guy:
Do you love junkyards?
I’m not asking if you appreciate finding good used parts at a reasonable cost (there’s always eBay), or if you are one of those nature photographers who thinks a rusty fender is a cool backdrop for a butterfly shot. I want to know if the smell of old oil and dry, musty upholstery makes you smile. Does spring sunlight feel just that much warmer as you walk the rows of creased metal? Does your pulse quicken when you lift a hood and discover the engine is still intact, carbs and all? Are you a junkyard junkie, as nuts as I am?
There must be several levels to the psychology of junklove. Some of it is demonstrated by the attraction of places like Cadillac Ranch in Texas, Swetsville Zoo in Colorado or the many sculptures made from bumpers and other Detroit detritus in galleries all over. People seem to love to make something out of used (and sometimes used-up) mechanical stuff.
Another aspect of junklove is the prospect; the promise; the potential for renewal; the dream in every derilect that just needs to be brought out. That wreck over there may never see the streets again but its parts will live on in a better place. That place, of course, is whatever car I’m presently trying to get back on the road.
Which brings us to a third aspect: need. It may be just a torsion bar cover, a pedal return spring, a bumper pad. It may not even be visible, but in your mind’s eye it’s a glaring hole in your project, a missing tooth in a wide smile.
You. Must. Have. It.
And so we move on to the Quest. Today, a few keyboard clicks might get this part or that, but it does not allow you the Indiana Jones-like adventure of finding the treasure with nothing but your wits and bare hands. Trekking up and down the rows, eyes peeled for the slightest signals, you can almost sense your quarry. Then the satisfaction of climbing into a car to find, there in the dim recesses under the dash, amid tangles of wires, torn carpet and cobwebs, IT! The piece you have desperately needed for months. And with a fist pump you do a triumphant victory dance on a wayward spare tire. Sweet!
It’s too bad there are not many outdoor, “classic” junkyards left. And even the ones that still let you roam the ruins have taken some of the fun out of it. “Porsche? Let’s see. There’s an ‘87 in row 16, E-4,” the man says as he checks his computer. “Wheels are at B-2 on the third rack, engine is in the second shed on the left, transmission and suspension are upstairs, aisle A. There might be a few knobs left on the car if you want to go look.”
Back in the early seventies I would make regular forays to the only local junkyard that handled European cars, just to see what was “new” (so to speak, as there was nothing even remotely new in the yard). At that time there was a clear segregation of vendors; us and them (ferrin cars). If you happened to phone the wrong yard you’d get a huffy response like, “We don’t handle those. Call Atlas.”
It wasn’t “AA-Atlas” like a plumbing company would call themselves. They made only a token effort to be listed first in the phone book, since if you needed imported parts they were the only game in town. Atlas, and a few other domestic scrap yards, were on Barge Channel Road. On one side of this boulevard of broken dreams (and broken pavement) were the used parts emporiums and the City impound yard. The other side had the scrap metal yards, where the car-casses where shredded into ferrous confetti. Beyond that was the railroad track, the river and somewhere in the distance, a blast furnace. For cars, Barge Channel Road was a dead-end, literally and figuratively.
Strange that this depressing place would hold such appeal for a young guy, but I was just trying to keep a once-expensive German sports car running, and it allowed me to do just that, on a budget. I could find a starter, a brake drum or a cylinder head (sometimes - often you had to buy an entire engine) for ten or twenty dollars. Cash, that is, which was all the man behind the greasy counter would accept. Credit cards were something you’d only find in the wallet of someone who probably wouldn’t be shopping there anyway. Checks were payola non grata and if I even had to ask, then maybe I should take my business down to Pep Boys to see if they could set me up with a pair of Zenith carburetors complete with air cleaners and manifolds, I was told in no uncertain terms.
“Uh, okay,” I would say, peering into the dark recesses of my wallet to take inventory. “How much is that?”
I could tell by the tone of his answer that the price had gone up 20% since I brought up the subject of a check. Lesson learned.
Negotiating a price was always the tricky part of each shopping visit. Once I stumbled upon (literally - it was on the edge of a pile of twisted metal headed for a date with destiny across the street) a new, primered front fender for a 190SL with the factory parts tag still attached. I would have been no more surprised if it had fallen out of the sky and who knows - maybe it had. Having recently spent an afternoon with my rusty Mercedes roadster applying bondo in a shape that roughly approximated the “eyebrow” extension that was a signature of 190 and 300SL fenders, I was positively agog at this windfall lying before me on the scrap pile. Motivated by need and not a small amount of indignation that some dimbulb had tossed this perfectly good sheet metal out, I marched off to the “checkout”. On the way, I made a conscious effort to scoop a bit of mud into the headlight bucket and smear a little more along its flank - being careful not to inflict any serious damage. Entering the shack which constituted the nerve center of the whole organization, I shifted my grip so it covered the factory tag, insouciantly dragging the trailing edge along the floor.
“This was on the scrap pile,” I observed, nodding toward the stack of rusty remnants in a corner of the yard. “But I think I might be able to use part of it.” I tried hard to make it sound like I was doing the guy a favor by getting rid of it, hoping he would not actually inspect. His view partially blocked by the counter, I made no effort to lift it up for scrutiny, and held my breath as he leaned forward a bit, then a bit more, clamping down on a cigar while squinting through acrid smoke.
“What else you got?” he asked.
“That’s it for today,” I replied, not wanting to leave it for inspection while I shopped for more. Of course, the “else” didn’t include both pockets full of fuses, small nuts and electrical connectors that were a standard part of any trip to Atlas. That stuff would have gone in the trash had I not “liberated” it.
In the end I couldn’t hide the fact that its smooth contours meant the fender must be worth something more than scrap value, and twenty dollars later - about four times what I was hoping to pay - I was on my way home, another parts adventure completed.
On the way out I stopped for a minute to look again at the 356 Roadster near the front gate - a new arrival I had noticed earlier in the visit. With no wheels or tires (it probably had chromes, which were a hot ticket for VW owners), it sat forlornly on its brake drums in the dirt. Otherwise complete but ratty, the Man wanted $500 for it. Five Hundred Dollars! Was he nuts? That was running, driving, used car money. This was a junkyard, for cryin’ out loud.
Gordon Maltby
Do you love junkyards?
I’m not asking if you appreciate finding good used parts at a reasonable cost (there’s always eBay), or if you are one of those nature photographers who thinks a rusty fender is a cool backdrop for a butterfly shot. I want to know if the smell of old oil and dry, musty upholstery makes you smile. Does spring sunlight feel just that much warmer as you walk the rows of creased metal? Does your pulse quicken when you lift a hood and discover the engine is still intact, carbs and all? Are you a junkyard junkie, as nuts as I am?
There must be several levels to the psychology of junklove. Some of it is demonstrated by the attraction of places like Cadillac Ranch in Texas, Swetsville Zoo in Colorado or the many sculptures made from bumpers and other Detroit detritus in galleries all over. People seem to love to make something out of used (and sometimes used-up) mechanical stuff.
Another aspect of junklove is the prospect; the promise; the potential for renewal; the dream in every derilect that just needs to be brought out. That wreck over there may never see the streets again but its parts will live on in a better place. That place, of course, is whatever car I’m presently trying to get back on the road.
Which brings us to a third aspect: need. It may be just a torsion bar cover, a pedal return spring, a bumper pad. It may not even be visible, but in your mind’s eye it’s a glaring hole in your project, a missing tooth in a wide smile.
You. Must. Have. It.
And so we move on to the Quest. Today, a few keyboard clicks might get this part or that, but it does not allow you the Indiana Jones-like adventure of finding the treasure with nothing but your wits and bare hands. Trekking up and down the rows, eyes peeled for the slightest signals, you can almost sense your quarry. Then the satisfaction of climbing into a car to find, there in the dim recesses under the dash, amid tangles of wires, torn carpet and cobwebs, IT! The piece you have desperately needed for months. And with a fist pump you do a triumphant victory dance on a wayward spare tire. Sweet!
It’s too bad there are not many outdoor, “classic” junkyards left. And even the ones that still let you roam the ruins have taken some of the fun out of it. “Porsche? Let’s see. There’s an ‘87 in row 16, E-4,” the man says as he checks his computer. “Wheels are at B-2 on the third rack, engine is in the second shed on the left, transmission and suspension are upstairs, aisle A. There might be a few knobs left on the car if you want to go look.”
Back in the early seventies I would make regular forays to the only local junkyard that handled European cars, just to see what was “new” (so to speak, as there was nothing even remotely new in the yard). At that time there was a clear segregation of vendors; us and them (ferrin cars). If you happened to phone the wrong yard you’d get a huffy response like, “We don’t handle those. Call Atlas.”
It wasn’t “AA-Atlas” like a plumbing company would call themselves. They made only a token effort to be listed first in the phone book, since if you needed imported parts they were the only game in town. Atlas, and a few other domestic scrap yards, were on Barge Channel Road. On one side of this boulevard of broken dreams (and broken pavement) were the used parts emporiums and the City impound yard. The other side had the scrap metal yards, where the car-casses where shredded into ferrous confetti. Beyond that was the railroad track, the river and somewhere in the distance, a blast furnace. For cars, Barge Channel Road was a dead-end, literally and figuratively.
Strange that this depressing place would hold such appeal for a young guy, but I was just trying to keep a once-expensive German sports car running, and it allowed me to do just that, on a budget. I could find a starter, a brake drum or a cylinder head (sometimes - often you had to buy an entire engine) for ten or twenty dollars. Cash, that is, which was all the man behind the greasy counter would accept. Credit cards were something you’d only find in the wallet of someone who probably wouldn’t be shopping there anyway. Checks were payola non grata and if I even had to ask, then maybe I should take my business down to Pep Boys to see if they could set me up with a pair of Zenith carburetors complete with air cleaners and manifolds, I was told in no uncertain terms.
“Uh, okay,” I would say, peering into the dark recesses of my wallet to take inventory. “How much is that?”
I could tell by the tone of his answer that the price had gone up 20% since I brought up the subject of a check. Lesson learned.
Negotiating a price was always the tricky part of each shopping visit. Once I stumbled upon (literally - it was on the edge of a pile of twisted metal headed for a date with destiny across the street) a new, primered front fender for a 190SL with the factory parts tag still attached. I would have been no more surprised if it had fallen out of the sky and who knows - maybe it had. Having recently spent an afternoon with my rusty Mercedes roadster applying bondo in a shape that roughly approximated the “eyebrow” extension that was a signature of 190 and 300SL fenders, I was positively agog at this windfall lying before me on the scrap pile. Motivated by need and not a small amount of indignation that some dimbulb had tossed this perfectly good sheet metal out, I marched off to the “checkout”. On the way, I made a conscious effort to scoop a bit of mud into the headlight bucket and smear a little more along its flank - being careful not to inflict any serious damage. Entering the shack which constituted the nerve center of the whole organization, I shifted my grip so it covered the factory tag, insouciantly dragging the trailing edge along the floor.
“This was on the scrap pile,” I observed, nodding toward the stack of rusty remnants in a corner of the yard. “But I think I might be able to use part of it.” I tried hard to make it sound like I was doing the guy a favor by getting rid of it, hoping he would not actually inspect. His view partially blocked by the counter, I made no effort to lift it up for scrutiny, and held my breath as he leaned forward a bit, then a bit more, clamping down on a cigar while squinting through acrid smoke.
“What else you got?” he asked.
“That’s it for today,” I replied, not wanting to leave it for inspection while I shopped for more. Of course, the “else” didn’t include both pockets full of fuses, small nuts and electrical connectors that were a standard part of any trip to Atlas. That stuff would have gone in the trash had I not “liberated” it.
In the end I couldn’t hide the fact that its smooth contours meant the fender must be worth something more than scrap value, and twenty dollars later - about four times what I was hoping to pay - I was on my way home, another parts adventure completed.
On the way out I stopped for a minute to look again at the 356 Roadster near the front gate - a new arrival I had noticed earlier in the visit. With no wheels or tires (it probably had chromes, which were a hot ticket for VW owners), it sat forlornly on its brake drums in the dirt. Otherwise complete but ratty, the Man wanted $500 for it. Five Hundred Dollars! Was he nuts? That was running, driving, used car money. This was a junkyard, for cryin’ out loud.
Gordon Maltby
Comments
But would you be interested in a nice rusty 912....
Robert L. Wilson, MD