{"id":2602,"date":"2020-01-15T22:53:40","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T04:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2020-01-15T22:53:40","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T04:53:40","slug":"the-10-best-junkyard-finds-treasures-and-gems-of-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/?p=2602","title":{"rendered":"The 10 Best Junkyard Finds, Treasures, and Gems of 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"top1\"<\/a>Every year, I do 52 Junkyard Finds for The Truth About Cars<\/a>, 52 Junkyard Treasures for Autoweek<\/a>, and 104 Junkyard Gems for Autoblog<\/a>, and you’ll find links to all 1,800+ of those posts at the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand\u2122<\/a>. Out of those 208 junkyard vehicles that I documented last year, I have chosen the ten that I liked the best. Four from GM, two from Toyota, two from Ford, and one apiece from Lancia and Subaru, all in chronological model-year order. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

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1951 Lincoln Cosmopolitan Sport Sedan<\/a>, Colorado<\/h3>\n

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\nIt’s still not too difficult to find cars from the 1940s and 1950s in the Colorado yards near my home, but those with intact flathead Ford V8 engines<\/a> are very tough to find. In fact, since I started documenting interesting junkyard machinery back in 2007, I’d seen just this ’49 Ford sedan<\/a> and this ’52 Mercury Custom<\/a> prior to the luxurious ’51 Cosmopolitan<\/a> I found in Denver last winter.<\/p>\n

\"1958-vauxhall-victor-super-estate-in-colorado-wrecking-yard-photo-by-murilee-martin\"<\/a>
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1958 Vauxhall Victor Super Estate<\/a>, Colorado<\/h3>\n

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\nBelieve it or not, GM actually sold Vauxhall Victors in North America for a few years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when they competed with the Hillman Husky<\/a> for a handful of potential buyers. I managed to find this hanta-tastic ’58 Victor wagon<\/a> over the summer, on a 101\u00b0F day at a yard halfway between Denver and Cheyenne.<\/p>\n

\"1960-chevrolet-biscayne-in-colorado-wrecking-yard-photo-by-murilee-martin\"<\/a>
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1960 Chevrolet Brookwood 2-Door Wagon<\/a>, Colorado<\/h3>\n

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\nJust a couple of rows away from the Vauxhall, I found this ’60 Chevy Biscayne two-door wagon that same broiling day<\/a>. Two-door Detroit wagons of the 1950s and 1960s are supposed to be incredibly valuable these days, but\u2026 well, there it was.<\/p>\n

\"1965-chevrolet-malibu-in-colorado-junkyard-photo-by-murilee-martin\"<\/a>
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1965 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu Sedan<\/a>, Colorado<\/h3>\n

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\nYou’d think that a first-generation Chevelle with a factory V8 and little rust would have been spared a junkyard fate, but nobody seems to like old Detroit sedans. This ’65 Malibu<\/a> hasn’t even had many parts pulled from it.<\/p>\n

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1976 Lancia Beta Coupe<\/a>, California<\/h3>\n

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\nHere’s the first junkyard Lancia<\/a> I’ve seen since, I dunno, the early 2000s. Being in California didn’t stop it from getting catastrophically rusty.<\/p>\n

\"1980-subaru-in-colorado-wrecking-yard-photo-by-murilee-martin\"<\/a>
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1980 Subaru 4WD Hatchback<\/a>, Colorado<\/h3>\n

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\nLiving in Denver, I have no problem finding Subaru after Subaru after Subaru in junkyards<\/a>, but this super-cheap-spec ’80 4WD hatch<\/a> (from the era in which this car was called, simply, “The Subaru”) in great original condition really caught my eye. The owner’s manual was still in the glovebox; I sent it to Subaru USA headquarters, where they plan to put it on display.<\/p>\n

\"1985-toyota-van-in-california-wrecking-yard-photo-by-murilee-martin\"<\/a>
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1985 Toyota Van<\/a>, California<\/h3>\n

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\nExamples of the Toyota TownAce van<\/a> (known here as The Toyota Van) still show up regularly in the big U-Wrench yards in California, but this one<\/a> turned out to have been the star of a bunch of high-production-value music videos for a now-defunct Santa Cruz band known as The Rellies.<\/p>\n

\"1987-mercury-topaz-in-colorado-junkyard-photo-by-murilee-martin\"<\/a>
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1987 Mercury Topaz All-Wheel-Drive<\/a>, Colorado<\/h3>\n

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\nI got pretty excited when I managed to find two Ford Tempo AWDs in junkyards<\/a> during the last few years, but I figured I’d never<\/em> run across the Mercury Topaz version. Amazingly, this engine-fire-victim ’87 Topaz AWD<\/a> appeared in a yard near Denver during the fall, and I photographed it. I’ll bet there are more street-driven Plymouth Superbirds out there than there are Topaz AWDs still extant.<\/p>\n

\"1988-toyota-tercel-4wd-wagon-in-colorado-wrecking-yard-photo-by-murilee-martin\"
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1988 Toyota Tercel 4WD Wagon<\/a>, Colorado<\/h3>\n

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\nHere’s a find that appealed to my inner car nerd: one of the very few Tercel 4WD wagons<\/a> sold for the 1988 model year (sales overlapped with those of the true-AWD Corolla All-Trac for a month or two), and it had better than 400,000 miles on the clock!<\/a><\/p>\n

\"2004-oldsmobile-alero-final-500-in-colorado-wrecking-yard-photo-by-murilee-martin\"<\/a>
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2004 Oldsmobile Alero Final 500 Edition<\/a>, Colorado<\/h3>\n

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\nWhen The General gave the Oldsmobile brand the axe, he allowed the Olds Division to make 500 apiece final-model-year Intrigues, Auroras, Bravadas, Silhouettes, and Aleros, calling them the Final 500 Edition vehicles<\/a>. All were in Dark Metallic Cherry paint, and the very last<\/em> Oldsmobiles built were 2004 Aleros. I’ve been searching for a Final 500 Oldsmobile for years now, and this Alero finally washed up in a Colorado yard in August. Yes, I bought the Final 500 badges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year, I do 52 Junkyard Finds for The Truth About Cars, 52 Junkyard Treasures for Autoweek, and 104 Junkyard Gems for Autoblog, and you’ll find links to all 1,800+ of those posts at the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand\u2122. Out of those 208 junkyard vehicles that I documented last year, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[59,444,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2651,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}