Junkyard Find: 2001 Hyundai Tiburon

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

One thing I’ve noticed after decades of prowling high-turnover self-service wrecking yards is the increasing average age of junked Hyundais. The first-gen Excel started showing up in junkyards in large quantities when the cars were about five years old (i.e., the worst car available in North America during the second half of the 20th century), and by the mid-1990s they were all gone. These days, most of the Crusher-bound Hyundais I see are more like 15 years old, about halfway between the average age of junked Chryslers and junked Hondas. The Tiburon has been around since 1997, and this is perhaps the third one I’ve seen in this setting.

Because I’ve never seen a Tiburon in a 24 Hours of LeMons race, I can infer that even beat examples are worth something (or LeMons racers are so terrified by the Excel’s reputation that they want nothing to do with any Hyundai product).

Not quite 150,000 miles on the clock, then a cosmetically disfiguring crash and probably some mechanical problems made this car not worth fixing up. The first of many Tiburons to show up in the self-serve yards?

After the 60-year-old Kaiser we saw yesterday, I felt it was time for a somewhat less elderly Junkyard Find. Speaking of which, I haven’t gotten around to making computer wallpaper images from the Brain Melting Junkyard photo sessions, but you can find plenty of free junkyard wallpapers at my site.


Korean-market car ads are always so macho. The Tiburon was a bullet!







Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Mbaruth Mbaruth on Jul 19, 2012

    I had a black 2000 MY version of this car. Women LOVED it. It had a totally unique design, both inside and out. You can say that this was either a good or a bad thing, based on your opinion of it. I think I paid around $13K for mine, and most people thought it was considerably more expensive than that. It wasn't the fastest thing around, but it was pretty cool for my 22-year-old self.

  • 406driver 406driver on Jul 20, 2012

    Can't agree that the Excel was the worst vehicle sold in the USA in the second half of the 20th century. Take your pick from: - 1987 Yugo - 1960 Renault Dauphine - 1957 Toyota Crown

  • 1995 SC At least you can still get one. There isn't much for Ford folks to be happy about nowadays, but the existence of the Mustang and the fact that the lessons from back in the 90s when Ford tried to kill it and replace it with the then flavor of the day seem to have been learned (the only lessons they seem to remember) are a win not only for Ford folks but for car people in general. One day my Super Coupe will pop its headgaskets (I know it will...I read it on the Internet). I hope I will still be physically up to dropping the supercharged Terminator Cobra motor into it. in all seriousness, The Mustang is a.win for car guys.
  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
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