#1959

Studebakers! They're not easy to find in your local Ewe Pullet these days, since the very last ones were built in Hamilton, Ontario more than 57 years ago. I have documented a half-dozen Studes during my junkyard travels, but none of them were examples of the compact that bought the venerable South Bend company a few more years of survival: the Lark. Last week, a first-model-year Lark sedan showed up at a self-service yard just south of Denver, and I was there to document it in its final parking spot.

Looking at my Junkyard Find posts for 2020, I find that I’ve been neglecting American trucks for much of this year (I don’t consider the PT Cruiser to be a true truck, despite being categorized as one by the federal government). For that reason, I’ve decided to share this thoroughly used-up IHC Metro-Mite stepvan before the year ends.

I haven’t been to the Brain-Melting Colorado Junkyard (where I bought my 1941 Plymouth sedan) for a while, but I’ve still got quite a few photographs of the thousands of old American cars that live there. We’ve seen this ’62 Cadillac, this ’52 Kaiser, this ’49 Kaiser, this ’51 Nash, this ’51 Frazer, this mystery custom, this ’48 Pontiac hearse, and a few more, and today we’ll admire an example of DeSoto‘s final years.

As I write this, I’m sitting on the floor of the bag-claim area at the Houston airport, waiting for my LeMons accomplices to arrive from California, with Pantera cranking in my headphones in order to get myself in the proper Texas frame of mind. Yes, races on consecutive weekends; it’s like being in a traveling rock-n-roll band, only with the smell of burning brakes/engines/wiring instead of groupies and limos. With low-budget racing in mind, let’s contemplate a battered little racer that won’t be seeing a track, ever again.

A proper coffee-table car book ought to be heavy on the grainy action photos, light on the words, and include photographs of Škoda 1101 Sports and Renault 4CVs at Le Mans. Sports Car Racing In Camera, 1950-59 qualifies for inclusion in even the most crowded coffee-table real estate.

Look at the picture above. Now pretend it’s your rearview mirror. That giant set of batwings is right behind you and gaining; now it pulls into the fast lane. A couple of teenagers grin as they zip by you ass-backwards at seventy miles an hour. The front grille of the ’59 Chevy slowly recedes in the distance ahead. If you spent any time on the roads of Cincinnati around 1969, this may well have happened to you.