As you know, I like building dumb projects using junkyard parts, particularly when they're all about safety! This tale of building your very own Skull Brake Lights has more than the usual twists and turns, so buckle up!
A Japanese photoblogger stumbled across this field of ten first-generation Mazda Cosmo sports cars in the countryside, slowly dissolving into the earth. It's obvious someone doesn't realize what's in their backyard.
Many of our readers were shocked by Germany's big win in the Door Panel Edition of the Junkyard Build Quality challenge, with an Audi 80 beating a Lexus ES250 and a Buick LeSabre. Today's challenge: Speedometers!
When we did the Junkyard Build Quality challenge with door panels, the Audi 80 won handily, with top-shelf fasteners, few hidden corners cut, and well-thought-out design. We're moving into sportier— and pricier— territory here, with a 1993 BMW E36 yielding its speedometer to Shawn's crude-yet-effective junkyard…
The '93 BMW E36 did pretty well in the Speedometer Edition of the Junkyard Build Quality Challenge, with excellent marks for component quality, but the Germans are vulnerable in the areas of complexity and general pain-in-assness. We'll see if Nissan can do better, with this '93 Infiniti J30 up next.
When I lived in Georgia, I learned that sticking your hand into a junkyard car's trunk is a good way to get a trip to the emergency room with multiple cottonmouth bites. Snakes aren't the only junkyard wildlife, though!
The very nervous DOHC Lotus "Torqueless Wonder" 900 series engine powered all manner of crazy Lotus machinery over the years, and now here's one that will be melted into Chinese dishwasher parts any day now.
The Malaise Era was followed by the Turbo Era, and nobody got more into the entire Turbo Way Of Life™ than the Mitsubishi team responsible for the Starion. Even as it prepares for crushing, this '88 radiates turbo-osity!
Earlier this year, we saw this '79 Datsun King Cab pickup in a Northern California self-service wrecking yard. Here's another one, in a different yard but with the same sad story: truly small pickups are just too small.
The Crusher doesn't care how rare a truly sport Volvo might be. The Crusher cares only for its own hunger!
This '68 Galaxie sedan was pretty well trashed when it showed up at this Northern California self-service wrecking yard, but sharp-eyed Midwesterners might notice the lack of serious rust.
You don't see many cars this old at the self-service, fast-turnover wrecking yard chains that I tend to frequent; generally the pre-1960 stuff gets snapped up at the pre-junkyard auction. Sometimes, however, an ancient car slips through the cracks.
Reviled as it may be nowadays, the '74 Mustang II sold very well; about 386,000 of the Pinto-derived Mustang rolled off the showroom floors that year, nearly triple the number of '73s that Ford managed to move.
The 1978 VW Rabbit sedan weighed only 1,955 pounds, or about a half-ton less than the 2010 Golf. Somehow, weighing so little, it managed to haul five normal-sized humans around... but this car's hauling days are over!
Even after the resolutely anti-convertible Malaise Era ended in 1983— hey, I invented the term "Malaise Era" so I get to define when it ended— your convertible-shopping options were still fairly limited in 1987.
Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! I walked into an East Bay self-service junkyard a few weeks back, and look what they had for sale!
Volaré sedans were not-uncommon sights on the road as recently as a decade ago, but have any of us ever seen a Volaré coupe?
You think those Yurpeans could ever in a million years create a Royale Brougham? Hell no!
