They are getting CRUSHED

I was sickened today. I live north of Salt Lake and drove to Grantsville Utah about 30 minutes west of Salt Lake. Grantsville has one of UTAH's best old car salvage yards. The owner's name is Mc Bride and he is a car guy. The yard was started by his father back in the 40's I believe. The yard was pasted down to Mc Bride who is in his 60's now. Well he has been fighting a battle recently with the city that wants to subdivide the property. He lost the battle and the CRUSHER is scheduled for March 1st. In less than 2 weeks 500plus cars and trucks will exist no more. The yard has many studes, hudsons,packards,chryslers,plymouth suburbans,late 50's early 60's rancheros and El caminoes, a ton of 30's40's50's Ford,Chevy and Dodge trucks. There are sedan deliveries, ranch wagons, hearses. I saw many 20's frames with axles under both ends. There was a very complete 38 chevy dump truck,a very complete 1936 ford 1ton. I priced a 48 ford 1/2 ton truck with very straight body. $500 bucks.That was before he lost the court battle,might be cheaper now. Well to make this long story shorter if you have any connections in Utah, or Salt Lake or close by please help save some of these from the crusher.

 

Do you have any contact info? Phone number? First name?




Anyone up for a HAMB road trip from SacTown to save some?

 

That sucks......save everything that you can, they arent making them anymore.

 

Crying fucking shame.

 

get us some info, I'll bring the transporter.

Dave

 

We are seeing this everywhere, Romos Auto Wrecking was in business since the 40's is being forced out by big business and they have crushed and hauled off all the cool old cars.

 

Not sure of the phone number but if you call information for McBrides Auto Salvage in Grantsville Utah that should get you a phone number. I believe its the only salvage yard in Grantsville.

 

McBride Auto Wrecking
410 S Center St
Grantsville , UT 84029
(435) 884-6183

 

Maybe this yard is different but here it goes anyway...

Locally there is a yard that has a bunch of 40's, 50's and 60's cars and trucks. I went there looking for a steering box because I had seen that they had a few F1's. I get there and one of them looks useable although it is missing the column and pitman. I ask how much....the answer $175. When I say that sounds a bit higher than what I was expecting, the counter lady says that is what they can get for it to a rebuilder. I said then sell it to them.

Last time I went by I saw that they had gotten rid of at least half of the cars (I assume to the crusher). If they weren't so off on the prices maybe they could have sold some parts. Drives me nuts when someone has something I need that they want to sell and they won't sell it for a "fair" price.

 

Drives me nuts when someone has something I need that they want to sell and they won't sell it for a "fair" price.[/quote]

Thats called supply and demand. They have it, you don't. I hate it when people tell me how much I should sell my parts for.
Let them hock everything they own and put up $250,000+ to open a yard and expose every orifice to every state agency that exists.
Make $25,000 a month and don't get to take home 2 cents because you have to pay your guys and all the bills.

I would have sent you down the road too.

Docauto get your transporter fired up. Theres some old cars to save.

 

So the owner did nothing to find new land to keep the cars on?
These processes take lots of time to happen... the city/county is pretty unlikely to spring a "you've got two weeks to move everything" kind of statement...


anyway, I can get a semi and trailer ready to take some of the cars. I'll call this week to see what we can work out.

 

Thanks for the heads up ratrodcharlie, I live in Utah County I'll run out there saturday and take a look.

 

keep us posted on what you see and prices if possible

 

Thats called supply and demand. They have it, you don't. I hate it when people tell me how much I should sell my parts for.
Let them hock everything they own and put up $250,000+ to open a yard and expose every orifice to every state agency that exists.
Make $25,000 a month and don't get to take home 2 cents because you have to pay your guys and all the bills.

I would have sent you down the road too.

Docauto get your transporter fired up. Theres some old cars to save.[/quote]


Exactly, supply and demand. No one was willing to pay what they wanted for the parts so they crushed the cars. Who wins?

I know good parts cost money. I also know prices are subjective. But still I think that 175 bucks for an incomplete f1 box is beyond a reasonable price. Plus it pisses me off that I was told that is the price a rebuilder would pay for a core. If it was they would have sold it to the rebuilder.

Don't complain to me about the cost of doing business in a state like CA. I know it sucks but if you couldn't make money then you wouldn't do it.

 

Prices?

if they have been seized and are ready to be crushed they have already been paid for.

if the owner is walking away from the cars then they are worth nothing... and the prices should be whatever those that are willing to save the cars are willing to pay... otherwise the owner gets nothing for them if they go to the crusher...

or if he is going to get scrap rate, the price per car should be scrap rate +$1


I dont want to sound harsh..... but this whole thing cannot come as a suprise to the owner.

 

I agree with you the price is a bit high, and some (like mine) might take a reasonable offer.

It is better to sell it than crush it, but most yards' overhead is MUCH higher than mine, and they must get it back selling parts. If the rebuilder was buying those from me they would be gone.

As for doing business in Ca, I wont be for long. It sucks and I havent made more than $5000 in a whole year. If I knew then what I do now, I wouldn't have started any business of any sort. And I never will again.

 

The company I work for simply farms out all of the "enviornmentally harmful" parts of the company to other states, Texas mostly.

A friend of mine that owns a garbage company in the valley recently got hit with a 90K fine for running a 6-cylinder CAT diesel un-permitted for a year. You may have been able to do that kind of thing thirty years ago, but it doesn't fly now. It just shows that any CA business owner has to cover all of their bases before they do anything.

 

Why wouldn't there be an auction of a collection of "valuable" parts cars such as these? The crusher seems extreme. I could see crushing whatever doesn't sell at auction.

Perhaps a few letters or e-mails to city hall would alert them to the fact that scrapping these gems is waste of tax payers' money. Auctioning them could recover some $$$ for the city to pay towards cleanup of the site, etc...

 

On a similar note, several local car guys and I fought the county on an ordinance a year or two ago which limited the amount of cars you could have in the privacy of your fenced back yard. Their policy is if you don't handle the "problem" according to their rules then they eventually come in and tow them off or bring a crusher to handle the "problem" and clean up the violation and then they stick you with the bill. I'm not sure how it's handled with a comercial situation but I would guess it would be similar. Why wouldn't they auction the cars off you ask? I guess that would be admitting that the cars are significant or of some value and therefore by crushing them they were doing something wrong.

 

Because it's not politically correct to save these cars.

 

...let us know what happens, hope lots can be rescued.

 

bttt

****save 'em****

 

Ran out to McBrides this morning. Its damn sad, there is tons of neat shit. If your looking for 40's sedans or a truck project there are plenty out there. Several very cool studebakers as well as Studebaker pickups. No early 30's iron though. Several pickups with flatheads.

Brother found a 1959 Jag that would be a great project. I could have wandered around all damn day. Every turn you found something bitchin. He's not about to give stuff away and some of it is now on Egay.

McBride told me that the state is allowing him to start with the later stuff 75 -up and it would be 30-60 days before they get to the good stuff.

While I was out there a hauler pulled up to take 2 vehicles. Guy came up from Southern Cal to get them.
.......

 

Yeah, they make it a crime to cut down a tree (you can always grow a new one). Somehow someone needs to make it a crime to crush old iron.

 

So much for living in a free country. I read about shit like this everyday. Just recently here in the area A business was forced to close up because of this. The guy had a 25 year lease on the land and the investers that wanted
to buy the land to sell it to the company that wants to build an airstrip to fly in cargo planes took him to court saying he violated his lease. He has a off road and atv park that was operating for three years prior to this. He was accused of destroying the landscape. Another case recently was an Italian immigrant that has a pizza shop that he has been running for over 50 years. The city council want to kick him out of the building he owns so they can tear his and a couple other buildings down to make room for newer building to spruce up the town. Why do we even bother to own anything when they can come and take it away for the better. Makes me sick, later shawn

 

i have done alot of dealing with denise mcbride and tooele county has been trying to shut him down for at least ten years that i know of. the reason he hasn't tried to get another lot is because up untill now he was wining the battle, he is going threw a pissed off devorce and the county is using that as a way to shut him down last i herd he is legaly not allowed to sell complete cars but he is allowed to sell parts for now but that was a few weeks ago so give denise a call

 

Is the city taking his land through "eminant domain"?

 

Not for nothin and being a car lover my whole life I hate to say this but with those beautiful mountains in the background & all that land(i'm from RI!!LOL) two things come to mind: 1 the cars are a eyesore( he could have kept it a little neater and grew some trees around it) and 2 there seems to be enough land that they don't need his!!!
In this area they like fences & bushes around junkyards & most people agree with letting them stay.
sorry guys thats how i feel, as much as i would take a good car over a bad women I love my mother earth!!lol
JimV

 

Isn't there anyone out in HAMB land that knows an attorney or ,is one, that can get this guy a stay of execution? At least until these cars can be place in good homes.

 

Big Brother knows best. How dare anyone question our fine governments decision.
Our hobby as with many other hobbies don't agree with the master plan. Whatever that plan happens to be for their term.