Saturday (March 22), I had business in Helena in the morning so I decided to spend the afternoon at Al and Buzz Rose's salvage yard. This is one of the largest in the area full of 40s, 50s, 60s and up cars and trucks. I've spent alot of time there over the years and picked up lots of great parts. I knew something was wrong when I pulled up, bad feeling. Then I was sucker punched.... the crusher. Scrap prices have finally outpaced our parts. At first the stacks were mostly mid 70s and up cars, but the I started to see an old Apache truck here, a 63 Cadillac there. I quickly made my way to the back of the yard where the older stuff is... I almost threw up. Nearly everything had a big orange 'c' painted on it... row after row going to the jaws of death. I haven't felt this disorientated and lost since my father passed away. I was in such a fog I didn't even take pictures. They have one crusher in the yard now and two more coming in the next few weeks. I was told that anything marked for scrap is for sale for the scrap equivalent, so cars and bodies are available for $50 up to $400 complete. I wish I had room or time to even grab parts. They had two large stacks they were feeding to the current crusher, but I can't see that it will be very long before they are stacking the cars marked in the yard. As I paid for the few things I did grab and talked to Buzz about the crusher. He seemed just as sick about it as I was, he is a car guy too, but with prices where they are and needing room they had to do it. He told me if there were any cars I was interested in I could make a deposit and they would mark the car as sold. He also remarked that two other yards in the state had already been completely crushed out. Its been a bad day.
Its a very sad thing indeed. If they continue one day a trip to the yard will be no fun. Who wants to go see new cars in a yard......makes you appreciate the old tin we have even more.
I'm just waiting for the day that the guy here in Somers starts to do the same thing. Last fall he decided that he wasn't going to sell any of his old car parts at all. This is the wave of the future I'm afraid. Larry
This is bullshit, here is what I dont get. These yard owners are upset too, but do it. Why? Money. Are they fucking idiots? NEEEEVER heard of ebay? So, your hand is forced to sell a 63 caddy for example for $300 to crush and ship overseas, but you wont list it on ebay and get $1000 instead for a "project car". Man these guys are so stupid. People are like "nah they are smart, they make a killing". Yeah sure they do, with the quantity they move of course, but they could be doubling thier money.
I feel your pain........There is a "Super Secret" junkyard in the KC area that I have been going to for about 8 years now with VERY RARE / Old ball cars in it, not your typical Ford/Chevy cars and when we pulled up the left side of the property had mud tracks where they had been dragging cars out........so my pops and I went to the right (not even thinking about the car tracks) and everything looked normal to the right of the yard, then I mentioned lets go check on a parts car that was on the left and WOW, 1/3 of the cars were gone, but my parts car was still there........Thank goodness........then my pops and I walked around with my "notes on a 3 X 5 card" of where some of the cars that we pulled parts off of in the past and half were gone........36' Ford coupe, a messload of 1940 fords, early 30's/40's caddys.........damn.........I guess that I will start spreading the word locally of where this place is since I cant buy 500 plus cars. But, we did take the torch and started torching on a car that I would have never thought that I would "Torch" to get parts off of, but I will never fix the car and I bought it for parts in the first place........and we started cutting a 34' Ford sedan that my dad had bought a couple of years ago and there is no way of geting it out with out cutting down trees, so we just "torched" thru the body and cut it up into pieces to get it out. Chris Nelson Kansas
Little by little, day after day, China has its sights on us. Their huge military build-up and their need for raw materials is what fueling this. We import all their crap, while they allow virtually none of our products into their country. Now we depend on them for steel and much of our other goods that we use everyday. China also owns much of our national debt, that piles up daily, which boils down to the fact the China owns much of America. We are asleep at the wheel in the USA. The crushing of cars is a problem for us cars guys, but the bigger picture is far, far more serious. Hows that for an Easter morning rant?
Welcome to the NEW century boys. The sad part is that a lot of this metal will be used to make war machines that in the future will be used to kill America's young soldiers, just like what happened before WWII and Germany's thirst for scrap metal. There is an old saying that if you don't pay attention to history you're destined to repeat it. We don't emphasize history in school today.............coincodence?............... I DON'T THINK SO Frank
it's all about the powers to be lining their pockets and the hell with the general USA population. Somewhere down the line you will be glad that you can still wrap your ass in fiberglass rather than badmouth it. Because that's all that will be left.
You can't save them all Old car parts are sacred to us, but not to many others, so you can't really blame scrappers for trying to make a living (even if they are often unscrupulous). I think the best we can do is use our available resources (time, money, storage space) to buy parts cars and at least part 'em out on HAMB or ebay to keep the hobby going.
Someone said you could get more on ebay than crushing. Im my experience this is not true .I put a 57 chev 4 door htp on and couldnt get even one bid. I sold a real nice 87 ford 3/4 ton complete with good tires and even a spare for $500.oo on ebay. With scrap at $9.oo a hundred it weighed 6200#. I could of got more at the recyclers. There are lots of car folks that want old cars. However with gas so high and maybe they dont have a way to get them home. Or they live where the laws and regs. prevent them from keeping old iron. There is really no sustainable market for parts cars other than the crusher.We have about 300 it is tempting to crush but we wont for a variety of reasons. Mainly though it is because our gut feeling says somthing just isnt right about it. We agree that there is a lot bigger picture than just what is obvious. America and our way of life is in grave danger. I wish people would wake up and face reality ( dont buy crap made overseas and Wal Mart and others sell.OldWolf
that's our future, i can see it coming. that weezing noise you hear is the usa taking it it's last breath, being slowly suffercated by the greed of it own people.
The general public doesn't give a rats ass about old cars or even think the same way we think. The average person now looks at a load of crushed cars gets all warm and fuzzy because "finally we are recycling"
Save all you can. Sell on ebay. Sell overseas. Do what ever you have to do. When they're gone they're gone forever.
We lost our only "old car" yard in missoula, they just bring them in and crush them right away now. The county does not auction off junk vehicles anymoe, they just pile them up and crush them. Kellys in arlee is crushing right now, he will " try to save some of the old ones, but I got rid of all the crap on his last crush a year ago" I had wanted to go to roses in helena, and never got a chance, I heard last week that they had sold or are selling the land, and were going to crush.
Freeman's yard in Whitehall is still good, he has been trying to grab salvagable cars from the crushers. Adam's yard in Livingston still has good stuff, but he's been on the fence about hanging it all up for the last two years. He's been getting pressure from developers for a while now. His Dad started the yard in the early fifties.
I'm just a liberal bleeding heart wimp, but I must agree here. This is very true. I work in the steel industry. Scrap just hit 400 bucks a ton!! And Where are all of our steel mills??
Damn, I was planning on going to Roses again this year on my western trip. I was there last June and got quite a bit. That was a nice yard to go through.
You got it! Thanks to the Clintons, Wal-Mart, NAFTA, WTO, and all that bullshit. China has been trying to take over the world for centuries. Looks like we are helpin' them out! Hope I'm 6' under when all that goes down.
I bought a caddy std flywheel , trans, clutch and pressure plate and had it shipped here to Texas from Mr. Rose . He helped me out big time . But I bet I paid a heck of a lot more than scrap prices .