Junk Yard Tours
Otherwise known as Special Interest Salvage Yards.
Throughout the year I'll be visiting classic car junk yards and doing a series of articles.
It's noteworthy to say that classic car junk yards are disappearing fast. If you need parts or a restoration project car you better get `em now cause in a few years there won't be many American classic cars left. The generation of business owners that started these classic car junk yards are retiring and their kids don't want to take over. Classic cars are going to the crusher every day!
Let's face it, the scrap price for steel is really attractive lately (April 2008). Old cars sent to the crusher are fetching $8.50 per hundred pounds. A 2500 pound car will get the heirs to the junkyard about $212.50. If the junkyard has about 500 cars, that's $106,250. Then they can sell the land to developers. These days real estate developers are swallowing up the countryside around the suburbs which seems to be where most of these classic car junk yards are found, and they're willing to pay for it.
So, I'm making a special effort to find not only the big and active classic car junk yards, but the ones that are closing down. I pays to ask for leads because the southern states are full of classic car junk yards that don't do any advertising. The locals tend to know they are there but otherwise you never hear about them.
I've gone to some expense to visit the big ones, and some are within a days drive. Baltimore is still considered a southern state so driving around the countryside in the Carolinas makes a nice weekend adventure.
You can also find a list of junk yards in the Impala restoration project forums.
You can click on the thumbnail pictures in these articles to enlarge them. They'll open in a new window.
- The little Valley Auto Ranch, Belton,TX
- Hi-Way Automotive, Franklinton, NC
- Stripping a 64 Impala, Baltimore, Md Not quite a junk yard tour but an article about a 64 Impala I stripped for parts.
- Svigel Auto Parts, Englewood, Colorado
- Woller Auto Parts, Lamar, Colorado