Hot Rods This ought to make you cry

http://www.oldcarsweekly.com/blogs/salvage-yard-ron/3500-crushed-large-montana-s alvage-yard-closes?et_mid=675148&rid=241924578

 

If I remember right his stuff was mostly picked over 4drs. The dollars he wanted didn't add up with what was salable along with wages and interest on your investment.
I'm happy, because my junk is a little more valuable now! LOL Not really.

 

Freman blamed the downturn of the economy for some of the yard’s recent lost business, but also said old car hobbyists share the blame. “No one wants to pay what this stuff is worth.” He estimated the value of his 3,500 vehicles to be approximately $2 million.

When asked why he chose to crush out when the price of scrap metal has been flat of recent times, Freman pointed to the rows of crushed vehicles stacked nearby and responded, “That scrap pile is $200,000 in my pocket.”
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It seem that in today's society people who make poor decisions want to blame someone else for their run of bad luck or their inability to adjust with the times.

Kinda galls me when the guy says the hobbyist are part of the blame because they wont pay over inflated prices.

Sad that this had to happen but the crusher is working everyday and just like he said,,he has 200 grand in his pocket instead of his tax write off of 2 mil.


I don't think I will be sobbing in my pillow tonight. HRP

 

May have been picked over, but if he had sold each one for a hundred bucks, he'd have doubled his money. (almost)

 

Let's be totally honest, would you load up the pickup and trailer and drive 8 hours round trip to get what is pictured in that feature? How about a round trip to Montana? Bob

 

No, it doesn't make me cry, but it makes me think anybody who would crush those two old Caddys is a soulless prick.

 

I sell the vintage parts for my neighbor's yard. He has a lot invested in his inventory. The hobbyists that come to the yard are very good to deal with. My neighbor doesn't make a lot off of the old car inventory, but is happy when I make a sale for him. Fortunately, the majority of his income comes from scrap metal and late model parts and he doesn't feel the need to crush the old cars. If he had to rely on the old parts for an income, I'm sure the outcome would be the same as the yard in Montana.

 

Got these 59 Buick front brake drums from him back in 92. They weren't polished like this when I got them. LOL

 

Shame, but where was everyone before he started crushing? How many cars were saved, after the crushing was made public? Some folks bitch about old cars being crushed and usually they're the ones who didn't make an effort to buy any.

This guy probably got tired of being low balled on the prices or maybe he just got tired of screwing with them. Man's got to make a living.

 

They amaze me these characters in the junk biz. For every one solid yard with fair prices there's gotta be 10 shithead run yards that would rather let it rot or crush it before selling it for less than a pound of flesh. I see this a lot with LKQ parts for crash parts on the newer stuff. You would be shocked to see how many times Ive bought OEM parts new because they where cheaper than the used junkyard LKQ parts. I just don't get it. Kinda hurts the hobby and takes a lot of the fun out of the whole process.

 

If you want to see more, and I know this site is not about Mustangs but crushing old cars is a crime either way. see my pictures at www.picturetrail.com/bartmcneill the Mustang Squash folder.

 

I just posted about a local yard that is trying to keep the old iron alive and accessible. However, no one wants to ante up. I do NOT have the room, else I'd buy that T'Bird of which I posted earlier today. Those who cry crocodile tears about this or that iron aren't really sincere, as there are cars being crushed regularly that are neither rusted nor totally picked over, just no one wants to ante up the dosh.

Cosmo

 

It's the same old story, the hobbyists think they should pay scrap price when it takes more time for a guy to deal with each individual who wants something, so eventually the guy with the stuff takes the big scrap payout and that's the end of it.

I'm close to that myself with stuff that I don't really want to scrap, that shouldn't be scrapped, but some of these cars I've had for 10 years with not even a silly offer on them. I just let one go for $400 to finally move something. Made a deal with a guy on something else and then he just stops answering my messages, so I assume that's done.

Parts, too. I have three pallets of boxes of new old replacement stock timing gears, chains, and timing sets with no clue what they go to and no way to look up the numbers on them, and it's starting to look more and more like $100 from the scrapyard for the iron. Some older rebuilt clutches, too, although those seem to be for like 80s S10s and have no real value. Cheap auction lot stuff from last year. Tired of it.

 

The market has spoken. Those who tend to crawl scrap yards are pretty old now. Yards that know what sells and doesn't can and do specialize in a select type of part, perhaps suspension or sheet metal. The market's current customer is dealing with increased cost of all their daily life needs and the legal extortion that's punched all of us in the face. Don't bemoan the obvious, and true enough that if you need it so bad why didn't you drive to MT? I'm all in when it comes to this shit and I too would sooner collect $200K than deal with pulling a part. How many times can you pull the stuff to find out the old responses the hard way? "___________ sells those for (any lower price", or "I changed my mind and got a new part" and the dreaded "You said no rust, and the whole under side is rust colored!" on a part that any normal metal guy would by the next 2 rounds of drink just to get the opportunity to purchase. Gimme the $200K....

 

One of the problems with pics of a field of old cars is that they all look good. They were junk, not fit for the road when they went there. Age and nature are not kind to them.

I am going to give you the yard guys take on what happens with old iron.

When you go to take a part off most of them, bolts are rusted fast or break off. You try to take a rear fender off a 30's-40's the clips break off so the bolt just spins. So to do it right to try to save everything you can spend 2 hours taking it off. Then you find out all the mounting edge is rusted off. Then the customer that wanted the fender tell you that it is rusted dented and junk ( after he looked at it on the car) and dosen't take it even for $20. So the yard owner is out 2 hours labor, that basically was not making money anyway.

Or you can let the guy take the part off himself. We have all seen the results of that in the u-pull-it yards. The car gets destroyed to take the part off and it is still laying there next to the car because it isn't good enough.

Sorry to seem so harsh, but that is what usually seems to happen to me. I am just a guy with 25 or so old cars in a field. Mostly 70's O/T stuff.

 

what the hell, i dont care what goes on in todays market and climate,this guy makes me sick to the stomach,in a time when thousands of guys are saving history with each and every early car they build in this day and age,(and thank god for that)this happens,did anybody with 200,000 offer to buy the lot and save it? i know many guys from the old days and school who would be rolling over in their graves because of this,,and one more thing, the day Scrap Metal became main stream in society as a plannet saver,that same day one of the biggest LIES ever bestowed upon the people of this plannet began and for the worse,now most people break out in a rash thinking of the value on scrap, fair enough but for gods sake not this way,i never want to see this again in modern history,its bad enough the plastic out there we must endure every day because its the way they say, those few academics in suites,but we all know better and this is a perfect exsample of a money scrap metal rash for all the wrong reasons,,wtf.

 

those guys who run the crusher must have no souls or consience.
I couldn't do it.

 

Money always wins.....

It is a shame though. This stuff isn't getting any easier to find. Even the 4 doors.

 

The guy only got $57 for each car!!! Geez... he'd been money ahead to drag to the scrapper himself!!!

 

I always notice, too, the guys who cry the most about the stuff getting scrapped are the same ones who only want to pay scrap price, if they buy at all, they almost never put their money where their mouth is. One year we got 40 cars out of a yard going to scrap. I could easily have taken 40 more. I still have some of them and can't sell them - I probably should have left them there.

 

There's an old saying "you're either part of the problem, or you're part of the solution." Which one are you? I've rescued four that may have gone for scrap. May take a while to get to them all, but at least they're safe from the crusher. And I do try to support the local yards for parts, and not try to lowball. That's one thing that does burn me up when I'm trying to sell a part worth $100 for $90 just to have some jerk offer you $20 when he knows its value also. If you know a part is worth what a man asks, don't try to steal it from him.

 

What's the problem? Enough metal there to make at least 12,000 Chevy Sparks.

 

I have done the same thing with cars I have had. I need to move to another country and no one is willing to pay anything. Then you pull it to the scrapyard and they are like "I would have bought that" Yeah, where the fuck were you when it was for sale. I hate selling cars because everyone wants something for nothing. What is the guy supposed to do? Maybe he had health problems and needed the money. I don't blame the guy with all the cheap fucks out there nowadays. Now can we put our handkerchiefs away and get back to talking about hot rods and customs.

 

I can see both sides of this deal. Sure I am as tired of dealing with cheapskates as anybody else. However, I suspect this guy is just another one of the jerks that thinks that it's worth a premium just because it's old. In my experience those are the people who are more likely to publicly complain about nobody paying what things are supposedly worth. Kind of like a guy I know with a dozen rotted out '50s moredors for between 2-3k each... <good luck dillhole.

 

You have to pay what the owner wants. It's his stuff. If you don't pay, you don't get it.
As an enthusiast, it's emotionally painful to see this. But this isn't a hobby to this guy. It's his business & livelihood. Crushing out made fiscal sense to him. It was a miracle he held out for as long as he has, with all state/fed requirements getting worse every year for these old yards.

 

Exactly. Walk a mile in his shoes........
Emotion vs reality. As a hobbiest I hate to see it, but as a businessman I can understand it. It would be a tough decision to make though....

 

On the Mustangs that got scrapped, I offered to buy some of them but none were for sale. All were to be crushed including convertibles and fastbacks. I bought my 69 Mustang convertible there as it was stored in a building at the salvage. I don't know if anyone else saw or got pictures of these cars.
www.picturetrail.com/bartmcneill

 

I reposted my stuff on here and I notice no one's contacted me on anything yet. Case in point.

 

Crazy, he says they're worth $2 million and settles for $200 grand??? Like someone said "He got about $57 for each car". Either it's spite or stupidity. Don't you think that if he offered them up for a ridiculous "low ball" price of $150 (whole car - take it or leave it), he might have sold most of them?...and almost tripled his money.

 

quote ;"said old car hobbyists share the blame. “No one wants to pay what this stuff is worth.” He estimated the value of his 3,500 vehicles to be approximately $2 million.
“That scrap pile is $200,000 in my pocket.”

If it were worth $2 million, that's what he'd of been paid, not 1/10th ($200,000).
It's worth $200,000, not $2 million.

We go through this every month or so in a similar thread. It's a trend. Guy holds out on "his" price for decades, then caves in and scraps the entire yard to spite the car enthusiasts that wouldn't pay "what it was worth". Blames his "prick" customers for all his business woes. He should blame himself for accepting the deal.
That 50 Cad pictured; I bet he held out on a given price for the parts such as the hood for years. Now the hood nets 2 bucks in scrap. He lost the bet, but it's a loss for both sides.
Get used to it guys.The wrecking yard game has changed. The old school "slow dime" yards are vanishing. It used to be the guy out in the sticks with acres of cars that sat for years. Modern day "fast nickel" yards bring in a car, and systematically bust it down into moveable parts that are inventoried into a database and scrap the rest. Corporate chain owned yards, Epa rules, property values and the internet have contributed to the change.

As for pricing, there's an old saying in real estate; "If it hasn't sold in 6 months, it's overpriced"
Same hold true for car parts or anything else. Unless it's a really obscure part, if an ad (ebay, HAMB, etc.) has been bumped 27 times or for months, it's over priced.