We have been reading about the high price of scrap metal and stories of decent cars being sold for scrap and crushed. Have you ever bought a car/truck from a salvage yard and got it streetable or raceable. I have one time that I remember. Back in '66 I was driving a dump truck in Charlotte and was hauling asphalt on a long term road widening project. I passed a junkyard several times each day and during one of those days a '57 Nomad turned up there. Not out front in the parking lot but inside the gate of the parted out cars. I knew it had just arrived but didn't believe they were going to part it out. The car was only 9 years old but it was not unusual for cars that age have well over 100,000 miles and some major mechanical problems. I stopped on my next trip by that day and much to my surprise the owner said he was going to part it out. Nomads had never lost their popularity with wealthy families but were just getting popular with the cruisin' generation. I asked the owner how much he would take for it before parting it out. He thought about it briefly and said "$150.00". That may sound ridiculously low but this was when a good running Nomad with low miles would sell for only $1000.00. This car had over 100,000 miles on it and was barely running. It had not been garaged so the original paint and interior were showing signs of it's age. But the body was nearly flawless. I gave him a $20.00 deposit on the spot. The next day was Saturday and I was off so I got a buddy to take me there to pay it off. The 283 was on life support but got me home. The first picture was taken the day I drove it home. I replaced the engine with a '62 327. I had it repainted in black lacquer and the interior in Red Metalflake Button & Tuck. The wheels were Mickey Thompson Raders with Redline tires. The music came from a Lear Jet 8 track tape player. All of this cost me another $1200.00. (Times have changed, huh). I drove it until '68 and traded it for a bone stock very nice '32 Chevy coupe. I have hoped to run across it over the last 40 plus years with no luck. If you have had a simular experience with a car you bought out of a junk yard and made a street car or race car out of it let us hear about it. I bet there are some really good stories to tell. Keep it H.A.M.B. friendly
I think that is where all of the cars I've built came from, or should have been before I drug it home. Several were on the way to the yard when I intercepted them. My 50 Dodge truck was a 2 ton dump truck sitting on top of a pile of old tires in a yard when my son saw it and wanted it. After he lost interest (it was too big of a project for a 15 year old) I put it on the 4x4 chassis. That truck was my daily driver for the past 11 years before it got killed earlier this year. My current project was heading for the junk yard when I showed up and bought it. Bought an off topic 70s Dodge pickup off a guys trailer outside the junk yard gate. Had it made it inside the gate, it would have been crushed, they didn't sell anything. For 15 years I used to race local dirt track hobby class, nearly all of those cars came from a junk yard, and returned there after we wrecked them. One of the local yards would keep useable cars for all the hobby racers. Think he would sell the car to the racers for $25, knowing they would be back for another one before the season was over. Pick up the "new car" and return the old one when we got all our parts off it. I know we had a bad season where we destroyed 4 cars in that one season! Gene
Hard to read this post, I let a 57 Nomad get away while in a big D. I traded a 60 Falcon for mine. Sick and sad. ~sololobo~
My Edsel was going to be scrapped.... got it for $500. Still in the garage collecting parts and dust. Dont want to start til I have all I need so I am not delayed.
Most would call my place a scrap yard so if that's the case I guess that I build em all from the scrap yard . All kidding aside, I did build a 27 T-Ster with a body that I out from under a house in Santa Rosa near the Russian River.
went by scrap yard yesterday the cars sitting in the pile to be crushed was nicer than most cars driving by.people will scrap any and everything these days.growing up every car i owned came out of my dads junkyard.
This thread has been dormant for years so maybe some of you have rescued and restored a car from a junk yard.
When i was 19 i drove a 51 ford into a junkyard and gave the owner $50 bucks and my 51 for a 47 ford coupe that i pulled home with a rope. My dad couldnt believe i did that.
When I was about 18 (a few years ago) I found a '70 Javelin (6 cyl) @ my girlfriend's neighbor's house. No front wheels, sitting in the sand. Stopped & asked if it was for sale. Yes, $75. Told them I'd give $50. No sale. Knew I'd go back & buy it. Within the week, it was @ the local scrappers place. So I bought it from him for $65. Saved $10 & it was about 7 miles closer to home. Finished it off with a wild white & pink pearl with fuchsia, purple, & blue stripes paint job. Had the roof & trunklid spoilers, AMX hood, Camaro rear fender flares, 10" wide Cragars. Added a dual quad 307 Chevy / powerglide shifted by a Roadrunner pistol grip handle. One of my favorite cars I've ever had. Sold it too cheap.
I bought a fairly nice '56 Ford Mainline 2 door sedan from a yard back in 1978, for 300.00. It had a 302 4V/C4, black T-Bird buckets, and wheels from a late '60's Chrysler or Imperial. Painted a nice metallic brown, we had a blast with that thing. It was the best deal I ever had on a HAMB friendly ride. An old friend texted me the other day asking about it. We had to tow it home, because the charging system still had the regulator for a generator. Once we straightened that out, the only complaint left was the vacuum operated wipers. At seventeen, that was beyond our collective capabilities, so it was a fair weather only machine.
1975: I was working for G&L auto wrecking in Chula Vista, Ca. It was a 55-57 chevy yard and right inside the gate was a 55 nomad with $500 written in shoe polish on the windshield. I prolly could have scored it for 400 but I was into my 66 Impala at the time...dumbass me. I shoulda taken the 220hp 283/full syncro 3 speed out of my Impala and put it in the nomad.
In the late '90s, a couple of my friends went in together to buy a '58 Edsel Ranger from a junkyard in Yucca Valley, CA. Turned out to be a nearly rust free 48k mile survivor that came from AZ in '65 and was parked. I ended up buying out one guy's half and did a lot of scrounging; we managed to get it running (but not moving; the Teletouch was inop). Fast-forward to late 2012 and I gave my half to yet another friend who then bought the other half from the other guy (there will be a quiz on this later ). He got it running and reassembled, then sold it to a guy in Whitewater who got it driveable. He ended up passing away unexpectedly, and his widow was finishing it - last I heard it was in an upholstery shop in Banning last December... Happy trails, W8UF730026, wherever you are!
'Critter, that's a good looking Edsel. I never understood why the "horse collar" grill was so maligned by critics while much of the over the top styling from 58-59-60 got a pass. The 58 Edsel is arguably a cleaner design than '58 Ford or a lot of the GM stuff, and if you look at sketches from back in the day it seems a number of designers had played with the vertical grille and split bumper idea but it never made it to production elsewhere. (Harley Earl, Packard Predictor, etc)
Here is a survivor my uncle Grandpa saved from a yard around the corner from his shop in the 70's, bought for the back window for his other 65 driver. I had to buy both about 5 yrs ago, the fun was running down the history and having a friend find the original display sign and a pic from Indy's world of wheels thanks Guffey
You're welcome. It's funny how seeing certain things set our memories in motion, every time I see a certain model Pontiac in Verdoro Green, I remember everything about the one I had. The rattles, opening the hood, twisting the key, all of it, I could go on and on.
The Jalopy Journal
