Event Coverage I actually cried at this one, and went out to spend time with my babys

I thought iwas like something out of a Sci-Fi flick. Expected to see Charlton Heston
yelling "Soylent Green."

It was sad for me to see cars I grew up with (left SoCal in '64) slaughtered like that.

My pal in Maine buys what he wants at the scrap yard so it won't be crushed.
God Bless him.

 

They also have been doing a lot of petroleum based cleanup with bacteria that breed when they pump Milk of Magnesia (not little blue bottles, but similiar stuff) into the ground. A woman I know worked for an Environmental firm, and her job was to figure out how much M.O.M. it would take to get the little bugs to breed enough to eat all of the crap out of the dirt. If they had to pour concrete before they made it look nice I wouldn't follow the ten second rule around there.

 

Kind of sad. Makes me, as a car guy, feel kind of guilty. We should be out there saving some of those.

 

Here's what we're up against.

 

Sickening video to watch, especially since guys up here usually start with rusted hulks and this was southern sheet metal. Like many have said, if people don't or can't buy them, they're not going to keep them forever.

Times have changed. I'm willing to bet I couldn't part out a car in my driveway for week before someone called bylaw enforcement had they wrote me up. Not everyone lives on 10 acres with a barn to save them all.

What's worse is that they'll come back as $15 Chinese toasters to put another N. American co. out of business.

 

did you see it's ghost escape at 55 seconds?

it was either one final gasp or that poor things soul.

watch it again. 55 seconds.

 

Jesus H Christ....tree hugging yuppies on the HAMB. What is the world coming to.... When I send a car to be crushed you can damn well bet there isn,t a piece of trim or glass left on it. That includes dash and interior! Maybe I have a sickness but I,d rather be that than a tree hugging yuppie.

 

Gosh. All those cars were pieces of shit. who cares.

 

I heard about this yard a year or two ago and put it on my "must see" list. Apparently I'm one or two years too late...

 

true craftsman like a lot of guys here on this site who can actually take a car like that and turn it into a nice piece, for one. old fucking cars are no longer being produced, they are only disappearing-being crushed and destroyed by morons. in the not to distant future, guys will feel lucking to get there hands on a starting point similar to that.

i've seen people start with less. hell, i see people starting with a rusted out half body and fucked up cowl of a model a and build a bitchin ride. let's see, how far into the future do we need to go for those cars to be in a similar situation? (about twenty years)

yeesh.

 

i have a car thats way worse than those. my 32 ford. but its a 32 ford. not a ranch wagon.

 

Im right there with you, like i said earlier, i would like to know more about this. Whether the guy was just shit talkin, or if they've actually passed some statute allowing them to crush street racer cars. Either way that guy pissed me off. And even though I hate imports, its a frightening thought to think hot rods could be just around the corner.

 

It's done by felony seizure.

Any property used in the commission of a felony can be seized by the arresting authority.

Apparently, Cali has made reckless endangerment a felony (or reclassified "street racing" as some other crime that is considered a felony)

Or, they could just be making the law up as they please. That seems to be happening quite a lot lately too.

Either way it's bullshit. The way the law is written, even if you aren't convicted of a crime at all (IE you were totally innocent), the arresting agency still retains the seized property, and can dispose of it as they see fit. Usually they sell the stuff to further fund their operations.

IMO it amounts to nothing less than government sanctioned theft. Since the authorities that seize the stuff get to keep the proceeds of its eventual sale, they are all incentivised to seize anything and everything they can remotely justify (and sometimes big things that they cannot). Even when they're wrong, or not legally able to take the property, they will seize it and sell it very quickly, so that by the time the bureaucracy catches up, the stuff is long gone, and the agency has already pocketed the proceeds.

Thieves, plain and simple.

 

He needs that car pulled from his sorry ass, he is not worthy of fine American iron! that is what is wrong with this country today, sorry ass teachers teaching their rhetoric and self thoughts. damn MTV, hug a gay person and a tree, then tell the kids it's ok you don't have to do anything you don't want! if you don't like what someone else is doing just cry about and the government will make it all better for you!

 

Where did THAT come from? I've never had anyone from the govt tell me to crush my cars. We recycle other stuff, why is recycling cars any different?

 

Had a yard in the Port Washington area I went to about 10 years ago had 20's to modern stuff. The last time I was there was about 3 years ago only 50's and up stuff left all else got scrapped. So my Dad found a 57 Chevy speedo cluster a friend needed; go back to see how much, the guy jumps on the computer and gives us a price that was the same for a used one from a classic Chevy supplier. Instead of selling this stuff for what it is worth after sitting in the yard for 50 years it all got crushed. Now the next asshole can want even more money for it, not sell it then crush it. I would be more than happy to buy parts from junkyards but I can't afford to.

Junk gets scrapped because people want gold prices for the shit.

As a community of hotrodders we should start holding fund raisers to support our local yards. Help them out so we can help us out. Maybe they would not feel the need to charge so much?

Tax credits should be given for salvaging not recycling!

Using something that is already made is greener than recycling.

 

"If you go and talk to any scrapyard owner, they will tell you that they would love to sell cars to individuals."
Sure, Go in and inquire about that purchasing that old enginless hulk that has been picked over for the last 4 decades, most likely to get one of two standard replies;
"$800"
or "No title, Sorry, not allowed to sell, gotta be crushed.

 

"Junk" gets scrapped because assholes go to these places and expect some kind of deal like they're special and the owner is some kind of rat-rod charity istead of a for profit business. If the classic Chevy place can get $X for it there's no fucking reason the guy with the salvage yard shouldn't be able to get the same price, or close to it, and your savings is not paying $10+ to have it shipped to you. So what he's had it 40 years? Either it's good and worth the money, or it's junk, but if it's junk why the hell do you want it?

Same goes for complete cars. If I can part out a car and make $2000 from it, I'm sure not going to sell it whole for less than that. I don't care if it's broken in two big pieces.


"Junk" also gets scrapped because short-sighted pricks see something beyond their skill level and think it's useless because -they- can't fix it. I sold a '53 Skylark a year ago that most guys on here would have shit their pants over the idea of fixing it. The car had been hit in the side, dumped upside down in the junkyard, and the entire front frame stub with suspension torched off and long gone.

A couple weeks ago I heard from a guy that they have the body on that car done, in primer. It has pieces from like three Skylarks in it, but it's that far along. You can fix most anything if you put the effort into it.

 

Hate to burst yer bubble, but you ain't scary. You're ill-informed and willing to accept what you're told rather than getting hard science and info. What you may know for fact was not in your initial reply and what was in that reply was covered in redneck rhetoric. To say new auto salvage owner's kids have teeth and go to school...where do you get that? I know a dozen past 'junkyard' owners and their wealth is substantial from decades in the buisness. But apparently your only experiance had to be with "Clem" or Bubba" in their lil backwoods leftovers rather than a legit yard. I grew up in Motown. I know the buisness from the past. I can see how it is now and for the future. And I can assure you that the ones who've passed away still carry the respect of their faithful customers and peers who's last thought is to dig em up and ship em to china.

What is scary is that other simple minds will follow such things. The army of hogs being led to slaughter driven by corporate pillage and grab mindsets. And this is all OK with you. It's OK to bash the past of the US auto industry and it's spin-offs (salvage yards and auto parts). The talent and foresight to recycle such raw material was initiated by a major US auto manufacturer who believed in preservation (100 bonus points for the 1st to answer who it was).

Yeah man, you aint scary at all. Your comments aren't either. They're mildly amusing and substantially pitiful.

 

I live about 5 miles from that yard, and have walked it many times to find parts. You my friend have know idea of what you are talking about. The old man that owned that yard (AG) had keep it open until the day he had a heart attack and died. The yard sits on about 50 acres of down ward slopping granite with a little sand thrown in. He probably had about 1000 cars and trucks in there, he had the yard broken up into sections, like rows of early falcons, valiants, studebakers, trucks, Ford stuff and then an assortment of other things. I remember the last time I was out there a guy had bought a 1957 pontiac hardtop and AG was loading it on a trailer with his old tractor. I agree that some stuff was well picked over, but there was tons of good stuff too. He has area up next to the house where he kept all the real good stuff. The other day as I drove past the yard and noticed that they had a 57 Thunderbird that had been pulled from some where in the yard. His daughter is clearing out the yard and selling everthing, what dont sell gets crushed. As far as your comment about the owners caskest being crushed and sent to China, is a comment made by a very stupid person. This yard is in the mountians and there isnt enough top soil to do anything with, I dout that there will be a Federal clean up fund for this yard you moron!

 

The not too distant future, with people like Retardo promoting it.

 

There was nothing traditional, or anything considered a hot rod being crushed in that movie. Nothing but fearmongering remarks throughout this thread.

Any idiot can modify a poster to play into the fear.

 

I thought the same thing, it is off to a better place.

 

Here's an ideal, when these yards get to the point where nobody can run them in the case here. Why not have at least a "free sale" where people pay like a buck or 2 for entrance, and then what ever they can haul or want is there's. Might move a little stuff before the crusher get's all of it. When you think of the small stuff that you need at the end of a project, buying it for pennies on the dollar isnt a hassle to keep on the shelf and if you dont need it, pass it along to the next guy. If you take a few days in a place like that you could remove alot more than what you would need, sell some off, and the stuff you took off wont make a dent in the final out come of what the crusher would pay. Alot of the problem "now" is alot of us have rounded the corner age wise, and can't do as much as we use to, and maybe the younger group isn't interested as we were as young men, a few are, but alot aren't. So when this happens it's just "bussiness", but dam how the world has changed....

 

they were making 100 times that by crushing.


Sometimes junk is junk. You might be able to make a nice old clunker out of some of that stuff, but more likely it would just sit next to your house and your widow would have it crushed 40 years from now.

 

The trouble is you have liability issues with folks taking off their own parts. Besides the people who are presently or in the past where actively junking a large number of cars are for the most part buisness people. They look at things with dollar signs not with a typical Hamber fix it up outlook. And face the fact time is money and letting anyone cart off as many choice items as they can find for a dollar or two is just plain dumb. It would cost them time and money. The crusher man is not picky and has the cash and is quick without any hassle.What if the crusher did not exist? Myself im glad that the supply is limited and dwindling. It makes those that are left all the more appealing. I dont want everybody to have a classic just those who really appericiate them . OldWolf

 

Money, money, money, seems like that is the bottom line now a days. Yes it takes money to survive, but let's say your classic car breaks a part and you can't find one anywhere else, what do you do sent it to the crusher, so the other's are worth more? And talking about a few buck's gate fee, was to get people there and then have the prices set like your pick-a-parts around the country where you pay a gate fee and remove your own parts, check one out, dirt cheap prices, and they make more than just crushing prices, otherwise that's what they would be in the bussiness to do. Seems like the last time I was there, there were over a hundred guys buying parts that day, and they are making "money" otherwise they won't be in bussiness......Good Day...

 

Fearmongering and fear?

 

i couldnt hardly watch it

 

None of the cars or trucks I've ever built has sit next to my house for my widow to crush. There has always been knocks at my door with offers to buy and if the prices are fair then they gain a new to them car or truck. Then I start another, been doing it for years and haven't lost money yet, just enjoy building old cars and trucks.......