Junkyard Find: 1996 Saturn SC2

The Saturn Division spent the first half of the 1990s printing money for The General with its no-haggle pricing policy and plastic-bodied cars that only rusted in areas you couldn't see easily, and all those cars were based on a single platform: the S Series. Today's Junkyard Find is an example of the sporty coupe version of the first-generation Saturn S, found in a Denver-area boneyard recently.

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Scrapyard Find: 2009 Alfa Romeo Brera S

I took a four-day trip to Northern England a couple of weeks ago, primarily to visit one of the only American-style self-service junkyards in the UK. While there, I also dropped by quite a few traditional dismantlers (known as "breaker's yards" over there), and one of them was Sherburn Motor Spares in Leeds, a business specializing in Italian and French vehicles. While there, I found a special-edition Alfa Romeo that never made it to our side of the Atlantic: a UK-only Brera S, hot-rodded by Prodrive.

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Mercedes-AMG Unveils 2024 CLE 53 4Matic+ Coupe

Continuing to play fast and loose with the definition of the word ‘coupe’, Mercedes-AMG has rolled out its CLE 53 4MATIC+ Coupe for the upcoming 2024 model year. At least this one has two doors and isn’t applied to a high-riding crossover. 

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Junkyard Find: 1988 Pontiac Sunbird SE Coupe

Even by the standards of the far-flung General Motors Empire, the J-Body was found everywhere, from the Vauxhall Cavaliers of Great Britain to the Isuzu Askas of Japan to the Daewoo Esperas of South Korea. In the United States of the 1980s, the Chevy Cavalier was the J-Body King, but its Pontiac-badged sibling, the Sunbird, was a not-so-distant second place in the J sales race. Today's Junkyard Find is a sporty Sunbird coupe, found in a yard just south of Denver, Colorado.

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Lexus Brings Inspiration Series for ’24 LC 500

While there is value in writing about a luxurious two-door coupe planned for very limited production, we’re really just taking this news as an opportunity to run a photo of the perpetually gob-smacking Lexus LC 500.

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2024 Mercedes-Benz CLE to Supplant C and E-Class Coupes

Mercedes-Benz has officially announced its replacement for the discontinued E and C-Class coupes. The 2024 CLE will serve as the successor to both models by adopting what the manufacturer assumes its customers like about both and trying to bridge the gap between them. 

With the popularity of coupes dwindling, it presumably makes sense for Mercedes to consolidate its two-door products. But it would be unwise to totally shut the door on a vehicle segment that has historically been important to the brand. Some of the most beloved Mercedes models have been coupes. Though the most iconic also have a tendency to include the letters SL in their name. 

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Junkyard Find: 1988 Buick Reatta Coupe

Just over 20,000 Buick Reattas were made during the model's production run for the 1988 through 1991 model years, and I had documented seven of them in car graveyards prior to today's Junkyard Find. All of those cars were in reasonably good condition, but today's '88 is an example of a Reatta that was loved to death by its final owner.

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Junkyard Find: 1983 Datsun 200SX Coupe

Nissan sold two generations of Silvias badged as Datsun 200SXs in the United States from the 1976 through 1983 model years, then sold the subsequent Silvia generation here as the Nissan 200SX until 1989. Today's Junkyard Find, found in a yard just south of Denver, is a nicely preserved example of the final year of the S110 Silvia, as well as of the Datsun name.

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Junkyard Find: 1969 Ford LTD 2-Door Hardtop

Ford updated its full-sized cars for 1969, stretching the wheelbase a couple of inches and adding a completely new snout. Production of this generation of big Fords continued through 1978, with well over a half-million sold just for 1969, so these cars were everywhere on American roads well into the 1990s. Here's one of the sportiest models you could buy in that first year, found in a Colorado self-service car graveyard last month.

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Junkyard Find: 1983 Volvo 242

Volvo built the 200 Series for nearly 20 years and the owners of those sensibly rectangular machines tended to keep them for decade after decade, so I have no problem finding plenty of discarded examples during my junkyard travels despite the last ones rolling off the assembly line in 1993. Most of those machines have been the fourcylinder/ fouror fivedoor cars, though, because more cylinders and/or fewer doors didn’t seem stolid enough for your typical American Volvo shopper. In fact, prior to today, I had documented as many junked 262C Bertones as 242 twodoors (and just a single 264 sedan). Now I’ve found this rusty 242 in a self-service yard between Denver and Cheyenne.

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The Right Spec: 2022 BMW 2-Series Coupe

We’re wading into dangerous waters with this one, since the BMW jihad fan base generally has strong opinions about the particular spec of a vehicle, spewing chassis numbers through their adenoids like water from a fire hose.

Still, we know a thing or two about cars around here, leading us to give it a go. The 2-Series (officially hyphen-free but it looks weird that way) has recently been refurbished and while it does have a set of too-small taillamps, it at least avoids the Bugs Bunny grille slapped on its older cousins.

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The Right Spec: 2021 Ford Mustang

We started this series however many months ago with the Challenger since it is a model with which I am familiar. Now, with summer in the rearview mirror and gearheads in wide swaths of the nation putting away their toys for the winter, build-n-price tools for sports cars will surely get a workout. After all, many car nuts often feel if they can’t exercise their clutch leg until spring, they might as well see what sort of rig they can build online.

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The Right Spec: 2022 Toyota GR 86

When Toyota and Subaru shacked up nearly a decade ago to birth the 86/BRZ twins, our enthusiast community rejoiced at the bundle of joy. Here was an affordable, rear-wheel-drive coupe on skinny tires that was designed to make its driver grin – both on the way to work and at the autocross course.

The next-gen car, called the GR 86 in Toyota showrooms, builds on the nimble chassis while bumping its displacement for more (and more accessible) power. There are but two trims – base and Premium – plus the choice of a manual or automatic transmission. You know our answer to the latter, so let’s figure out which trim is more appealing to the fun-seeking gearhead.

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Rare Rides: The 1994 Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe, Fast Personal Luxury

We’ve been talking about Thunderbird often lately, whether it’s in a Buy/Drive/Burn, or a recent Rare Rides on the 007 Edition Thunderbird of 2003.

And earlier today the Internets served up a random ad for a teal 10th-generation T-bird in fantastic condition. Seems like a perfect opportunity to add it to our coverage of the long-lived personal luxury nameplate.

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Junkyard Find: 1989 Honda Accord LX-i Coupe
Once Honda started building second-generation Accords in Ohio, the limits of the Voluntary Export Restraint agreement between Japanese automakers and the United States government ceased to mean much for American Honda shoppers. The third-generation Accord debuted in the 1986 model year and sales of these Marysville-built cars boomed. Most were sensible, low-priced Accord DX hatchbacks and sedans, but some rakehell Accord shoppers went for the sporty fuel-injected coupes packed with snazzy options. Here’s one of those cars, a 1989 LX-i Coupe in a Denver-area yard.
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  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.