Art & Inspiration So at what age were you exposed to junk yards?

For me it was 1952 still 3 years old. My father had a side hustle, buying used cars that most folk would pass on. One day he stuck me in his '51 Ford 2 ton dump truck ( his main gig ) We traveled north into the hills. Parking outside the gate I was told to sit and wait, It was then I saw the strangest thing, inside the fence. There was a coupe, and the roof was flat. Flat as a board! How strange.

Two years later he took me to a yard that was owned by Mom's cousin. While he was sourcing his parts and chewing the fat, I was left to wander the rows of dead cars. I found a '35 Ford, no doors looking around there was a plastic key fob, bead chain and keys. I decided that when I wanted to drive, keys would be handy. So they went into my pocket. Later at home Mom spied me with them. She had to know where, why. I explained the whole thing. She set me straight!

 

The neighbour - big Jim- ran one on our rural road. First time I saw a 55 victoria what a beautiful body style. Normal practice was moving stuff with a bulldozer, that was pretty hard on sheet metal. I didn’t really care for the dogs, or I would have spent more time there. I bought my avatar when I was 13, got the mustang convertible seats for it there and some nice stainless grille bars. That property is a couple of houses and a church now.

 

I was about 12,a fiend of my bothers was driving my mother car and hit a parked car. Dad picked up a front end at A1 auto for 35$ (early 70’s price) and the guy gave him the radiator. Have loved junkyard since.

 

I was in my teens, I had spun a main bearing in my '54 Ford, my granddad Highpockets drove me to Ed Powell's junk yard to look for a replacement engine, He spotted a 1962 Mercury with a 390 and he made a deal with them for the engine and transmission, we loaded it up in his pickup and his next door neighbor was a young hot rodder and was the son of his best friend.

Darris helped me pull out the dead engine and my granddad welded up the motor mounts and transmission mounts.

That car would fly, it had a lot more power than brakes, but that's a story for another day! HRP;

 

Back in the early sixties, the city was a lot smaller and things weren't zoned as they are now. We lived downtown and the wrecking yard was on the edge of town about three blocks away from home. My favorite playground.

 

1965 age 6. Our neighbor owned a yard and I went there with my Dad to get some parts.
I walked out into the yard,saw all the cool stuff and my young brain exploded. Beyond awesome.
Been chasing that feeling ever since

 

4 or 5, 1954-55. San Jose, CA. Just a walk along with my Dad.

 

I don't remember my exact age but it was in the single digits, I remember going with my dad in our 69 C10, I can still see him shifting the ol' three on the tree! It was rusty even then, I thought it was great watching the road thru the floor
We used to go every Friday afternoon, our favorite one was owned by this old guy named Pork chop. Him and all his buddy's would be in this old shack drinking and playing cards. One of my favorite things there was this 47 Ford Grain truck, I used to sit up in that thing dreaming of how I would fix it up! I wanted to buy it from him but someone else already had, he was going to put the body on a Mud truck... But it sat I there for years. Crawling thru a junkyard is still a favorite pastime of my father and I

 

10yrs old in 1958....going with Mike, my older brother, to pull a tranny and rear end out of
a '37 Pontiac to replace his worn out parts in his '37 Pontiac coupe. Hooked ever since.
Sometimes I'll just go into a yard to see what I might find. He's no longer here, but I love the
aroma of old oil mixed with dirt. Close my eyes are I'm 10 yrs old again with my brother.

 

Ten years old, dad took us to the junkyard to get a new front clip for the wrecked Volvo he bought from a friend for $25 (1964 car, year was 1972). My brother and I got to install the junkyard parts. It was fun. If you look close, you can see us.



When I was 18, I was finally old enough to get a job at a junkyard (I had asked when I was 17, and got turned down). I worked at O'Barrs in Tucson for three years, while I was going to engineering school.

 

Probably as soon as I could walk. On the weekends my grandpa used to take me everywhere he went. He ran a body shop when I was little and hit up the junkyards often. I think my mom has a photo in one of her albums with me, preschool age, and him pulling parts from a junkyard.

 

About 10 years old. Way back in the 50s when it was still safe for a kid to walk by himself I would walk to town, about 4 miles along a railroad track. I was allowed to walk into town to see the cheap 10 cent movies. Along the way there was a junk yard with no fence along the railroad track side and no dogs, so I started wandering around there on Saturdays when it was closed. That was back when you could find rust free Model A bodies in the yards. I got hooked on the old junk.

 

5 or 6 old junkyard on union road.. Martin's
1972 or so.. still a few 30s And 40s my dad got the stainless hood spears there...

 

My Dad started taking me to junkyards when I was 5 or 6 the best I remember.I got my first car from a junkyard in the 70's. It was a 67 Ford Falcon. Back then CB Radios were popular & I traded a Cobra base station for the Falcon. Junkyards name was EE Roberts in Waco Texas. Couple years later I sold the Falcon to buy a 72 Chevelle SS that I still have. EE had a bunch of Chevelle's, Impalas & trucks with Big Block Chevies. I went through a bunch of them . He sold them to me for $150-200 each complete low mileage with all accessories AC, power steering ect. I would strip them down & put my cam, aluminum intake & hedders on them & blow them up in the Chevelle. For some reason I kept all the accessories & still have a good collection of Big Block brackets. There were quite a few good junkyards in & around Waco with some good stuff but most of them are long gone now. EE is now B&B auto parts but it's only late model stuff.

 

It was when I was a teenager in the 1970s, and had just bought my first car - a 1961 Pontiac Catalina. There was an old junkyard out in the country that had probably been there for 50 years, it filled up a whole valley with cars, trucks, tractors, farm equipment and all kinds of stuff. It was owned by a crabby old guy named Red. It was the sort of place where you'd ask about a part for a particular car, and he'd say, "walk over that way about a quarter mile, turn left at the old combine, turn right at the 1950 Ford, and there should be a blue one of those sitting on its side." You'd walk out there, find the car, take off the parts you needed and then carry them back to his shop. He'd look at what you brought, rub his chin and say, "How's five bucks sound?" I loved that place, and was sad when Red finally died and they cleared out all the cars for scrap.

 

When I was 15, my dad took me to a junkyard where I bought my first car, 1949 Oldsmobile 88 with a burnt out trans and they threw in a used trans, one of those heavier than I was Hydramatic transmission! I don't know how we happened to go there because my dad never cared about cars other than to use them as a means to get from point A to point B! And with the help of a couple of my friends we managed to change that heavy SOB out in our driveway laying on our backs on the concrete with the engine supported with a tire chain stretched from frame rail to frame rail and that started my journey of loving an working on cars and motorcycles for the last 63 years.

 

Spent hour and hours at Red’s.

 

I was about 4 or 5 and you can not keep me out of them now.

 

About 8 yrs old. At the end of our street there was a private lane, the guy ran stock cars and had a fab shop. We could walk thru the tress and there were about 30 cars back there among other random junk. He had an old dune buggy that we were fascinated with.
1/2 mile down the railroad tracks was a scrapper who flattened cars with a dozer. Ended up getting to know him real well later on.
Always plenty to see.

 

Had to be 8 0r 9 with my Dad looking for old Mopar parts and body parts for his race cars. Loved wondering among the cars an got hooked on junkyards

 

I was 16 or 17, had an OT 67 Stang that the radiator started to leak, so I carried it to Koster's Radiator Shop in Fayette, AL. Old Mr Koster was a holiness preacher, when he got out of WWII he opened up his radiator shop. They also did some mechanical work there when he could keep help working for him, he was known to be kinda grouchy and hard to work for. If you went in on a Sat morning about 8 AM, he would be in a small office he had, preaching his heart out and recording it for the local radio station to broadcast on Sun morning while he was preaching at the church he pastored.

Mr Koster had a small junkyard out back, he would fill it up, let a few people pick parts, then he had a scrapper buddy who would come in and haul everything off for scrap, then he would repeat filling it up and go through the cycle again, usually about twice a year. I don't know why he took a liking to me, but he did, and gave me free roam to the junkyard, often giving me whatever parts I wanted, other times he let me have them cheap. I guess because I never stole anything from him and always told him what I wanted he figured I was a good kid. Got a lot of stuff from him before he finally retired and closed up.

 

I was not as young as most of you when I got into the junkyard scene. I was 17, in the army, and we had a Nike Headquarters unit atop Pinnacle Mountain in Plainville, Connecticut. The road to the Nike base went right through the Pinnacle Mountain Auto Parts junk yard. We soldiers, without a lot of money were good customers there. I remember buying a used transmission for my lowered, hood and deck molded, metallic blue, 1949 Plymouth 4 door for $ 10.00. Mike the owner was a good guy and treated us well. I was very upset the last time that I went there several years ago, to see that the entire junk yard was gone. I fondly remember a nice 1932 ford chassis, a 1933-34 Ford sedan body ,and a chopped 1949-1951 ford convertible cowl there.

 

Maybe 8yrs old? Dad called it therapy.

 

I was 5 or 6 back in '54-'55. My uncle owned the town junkyard a quarter mile down the highway and my dad took our '52 Henry J down there to try to fix whatever was making the engine noisy. Uncle Boyd had tools, a shop and mechanical skills my dad lacked, but dad learned. He bought a 1955 Motor's manual, took apart the engine, found a bent valve. replaced it and that Henry J ran like a top. We took it on a family trip across state to St. Louis that summer. My mom praised my dad for doing such a great job on that car that it made me want to be a mechanic, just like dad. A few years later we moved away and I never really got to spend much time in that junkyard, but I've made up for it in other junkyards since. I do remember having my pick of toys and other stuff my uncle had collected while picking up the town's trash. The Air Force had opened an air base in town about that time and I got a discarded jet pilot's helmet and other neat Air Force stuff.

 

I started going to junk yards about 10, then started “ living” in them at about 14, when I got some wheels! That is how I got my nickname “ Boneyard” because I hung out in them and was 6 ft and a buck and a quarter! Later my friends shorted my nickname to “ Bones”.
The salvage yard I pulled a 430 MEL out of a 1958Lincoln , in 1965 , is still going and I occasionally go there.
My friend and I are actually starting a salvage yard as we speak! I always wanted to be somebody! Lol






Bones

 

First one I clearly remember being in was Easy Jack's in Kansas, over there between Junction City and Abilene.

 

I was 4 or 5 the oldman liked picking the cars at the city dump I think it was cheaper . One time he needed a part for a 292 in his 59 F100 told me to look through the motor pile and I found it. I can still see him smile.

 

Probably as a near new born . My uncle owned a large yard mainly dealing in over the road trucks , pick ups and dry vans . He would buy old fleet units off of companies all the time . My cousin owned a regular auto wreckers 3/8 of mile from our house so it was a regular stop off for parts or visiting family. My Dad built us a race track and a hockey rink in the back acreage , so we would buy running junkers from my cousin for $25.00 and race in the summer and race snowmobiles in the winter . We were luckier than we knew . Plus Dad had a friend that had another wrecking yard out of town that we frequented . Dad also let us run one of his old dirt track cars out back .

 

Funny - after the paper route and the little side work at the Enco station I somehow - don't remember - got a job at 15 crushing out a wrecking yard that word has it - the taxes were not paid. Lots of neat stuff I don't remember out in the yard except for a Studebaker or two - my older brother was driving a Lark. I do remember a big shed or wooden garage on the property with stuff hanging around from the rafters and such - like we all do today.

We stripped out the seats and gas tanks and they were buried on that property that would become a park years later.

Supervisor guy was real cool - I rode with him most of the time to get lunch for the crew - a bunch of burgers baskets from the local Dairy Queen.

 

I was about 5 when my Dad first brought me to French Lake Auto Parts. I brought my son Cam to FLAP when he was 5 as well. See the channelock pliers he was carrying for me. He lost it and we never found it. I still give him grief about that 20some years later!