The Truth About Cars » Malaise Era http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com The Truth About Cars is dedicated to providing candid, unbiased automobile reviews and the latest in auto industry news. Thu, 23 May 2013 21:55:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 The Truth About Cars is dedicated to providing candid, unbiased automobile reviews and the latest in auto industry news. The Truth About Cars no The Truth About Cars editors@ttac.com editors@ttac.com (The Truth About Cars) 2006-2009 The Truth About Cars The Truth About Cars is dedicated to providing candid, unbiased automobile reviews and the latest in auto industry news. The Truth About Cars » Malaise Era http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/themes/ttac-theme/images/logo.gif http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com Hey Duke, Ever Worked On One-a-Dese Choiman Transmissions Before? http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/hey-duke-ever-worked-on-one-a-dese-choiman-transmissions-before/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/hey-duke-ever-worked-on-one-a-dese-choiman-transmissions-before/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 15:00:38 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=488649 TransmissionManOutIt wasn’t that many decades ago that imported cars— any imported cars— were considered fairly exotic. I’ve dredged up memories of some very funny 1980 Aamco ads that deal with that subject, and the internet has obliged by providing those very ads for us!

The bumbling rubes working in the transmission shop in this ad show some brilliant casting by the producers: “I watched a guy fix a Japanese trans-mish-ion!”


Speaking of bumbling rubes, the guy with the hose in this one deserved an Academy Award… but don’t let that brilliant performance eclipse the perfect stonefaced expression of the customer who doesn’t need his car fixed… that bad.

]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/hey-duke-ever-worked-on-one-a-dese-choiman-transmissions-before/feed/ 25 Junkyard Find: 1983 Honda Civic Wagon http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/junkyard-find-1983-honda-civic-wagon/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/junkyard-find-1983-honda-civic-wagon/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 13:00:53 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=487044 16 - 1983 Honda Civic Wagon Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee MartinThe 1973-79 Civic was a very good car for its time (mostly because just about all the other subcompacts of the era were so bad and/or boring), but the second-generation Civic was the one that gave Honda its reputation for bang-for-buck performance and miraculous-for-the-price build quality that seemed unbeatable for nearly 15 years. The value of the 1980-83 Civics became so low by the late 1990s that it wasn’t worth fixing any problem that cost more than a couple hundred bucks to fix, and so nearly all of them were gone by the time the 21st century rolled around. Here’s a Civic wagon, painted in very Malaise-y beige, that managed to hang on for thirty years. More than a year has passed since the last second-gen Civic in this series.
05 - 1983 Honda Civic Wagon Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee MartinOnly 139,302 miles! The interior and body are in nice shape, which suggests an indoor parking space and very sparing use. Maybe the head gasket blew back in ’94 and it sat in a garage, or maybe it was an extra car that was well cared for but didn’t get driven much.
08 - 1983 Honda Civic Wagon Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee MartinHow late into the 5-speed era did bragging rights last? I’ve seen early-90s Sentras and Tercels with 4-speeds, but 5-speeds weren’t particularly exotic in subcompacts by 1983.
10 - 1983 Honda Civic Wagon Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee MartinThis car’s early years were spent in Northern California.
07 - 1983 Honda Civic Wagon Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee MartinThe first-gen Civics were just tiny, even by the standards of the time, so the added room in the second-gen cars was most welcome.
24 - 1983 Honda Civic Wagon Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee MartinBelieve it or not, this vacuum diagram was simple compared to what CVCC-equipped Hondas with computer carburetors had by 1985. Good luck getting this setup through a California smog check!
21 - 1983 Honda Civic Wagon Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin64 horsepower seemed adequate in these cars, amazingly enough.
14 - 1983 Honda Civic Wagon Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee MartinWill these things ever be considered collectible? Hard to say— 20 years ago, very few thought that Country Squire wagons would be worth saving, and now we have legions of Malaise Era wagon fanciers.

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The downsized second-gen 1980-83 Cordobas, which were based on the Volare/Diplomat platform and didn’t differ much from their Dodge Mirada siblings, sold very poorly. You aren’t going to find many of these things today, either on the street or lined up before the Crusher’s jaws.
Soft Corinthian Leather was still an option— Ricardo Montalban would have quit in disgust otherwise— but this car has the more affordable soft Corinthian Velour.
With a smog-o-lated 318 under the hood, chopping a few hundred extra pounds out of the Cordoba for the ’80 model year made this car a much livelier performer.
The landau roof and touch-o-plastic-class grille treatment were properly Cordoba-ish, but where did the “gold” medallions go?

Not to worry, Ricardo liked what they did to his car!

01 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 19 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 20 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 21 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 22 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 23 - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/04/junkyard-find-1980-chrysler-cordoba/feed/ 31 Junkyard Find: 1973 BMW 2002 http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/junkyard-find-1973-bmw-2002-2/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/junkyard-find-1973-bmw-2002-2/#comments Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:00:28 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=481774
For some reason, BMW 2002s are easier to find in self-service wrecking yards (in Colorado and California, anyway) than are 320is. Most of the Crusher-bound 2002s I see are pretty well picked over— probably before they ever got to the junkyard— and so I don’t photograph them. However, a round-taillight 2002 with automatic transmission is something you don’t see every day.
I spotted another ’73 2002 with slushbox at this very same yard, about a year ago; that one was more complete than today’s junkyard find, but there’s a certain “abandoned project car” similarity to them.
It makes me sad when I see an old car with the instrument cluster totally destroyed by a junkyard customer, all the parts scattered around the car’s interior and nothing purchased.
Automatic transmission and air conditioning! This unit has an aftermarket or dealer-installed look about it.
Not much of this engine is left. Still, there are some usable parts remaining on this car.

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It’s bashed up, the interior is toast, and the rust indicates an origin somewhere east and/or north of Colorado. Must be a million miles on this thing, eh?
Nope, just 155,221 miles on the clock. Either the odometer broke in 1992 or this truck drove a lot of very hard miles.
The full changeover to the Nissan marque was still a few years off at this point, but Nissan was laying the groundwork with these “Datsun By Nissan” badges.
Electronically protected! No doubt the alarm was a variation on the Taiwanese National Anthem theme.
The King Cab wasn’t very kingly. In fact, it would be considered utterly intolerable by present-day truck buyers. You could sort of squeeze a couple of passengers back there, if everyone involved was very motivated, but in practice the King Cab mostly served as a place to store stuff out of the rain.
Some good patina on this thing.
Even though this type of self-service yard charges about the same for a whole long block as for a wheelbarrow full of carefully selected engine innards, whoever pulled this L20 spent a lot of effort grabbing just the parts he wanted.
Here’s an option you don’t see very often on small pickups of this era: air conditioning!

The Datsun Value Phenomenon continues!
01 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 19 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 20 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 21 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 22 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 23 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 24 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 25 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 26 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 27 - 1980 Datsun Pickup Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/junkyard-find-1980-datsun-720-king-cab-4wd-pickup/feed/ 23 Junkyard Find: 1973 Datsun 240Z http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/junkyard-find-1973-datsun-240z/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/junkyard-find-1973-datsun-240z/#comments Sat, 09 Mar 2013 14:00:41 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=480612 I see endless Z31 300ZXs in junkyards, and I usually don’t pay much attention to them (unless we’re talking about a rare 50th Anniversary Edition with BodySonic butt-vibrating seat speakers with super-futuristic digital dash, of course). Even 280Zs and 280ZXs are plentiful in self-service wrecking yards, so I don’t photograph many of them. However, an optioned-to-the-hilt 240Z, complete with automatic transmission, sunroof, and Malaise Era brown paint is worth shooting, so here we go!
I think this is the first 240Z I’ve ever seen with an automatic transmission, though this became a fairly common option in the 280Z and especially in the 280ZX.
I considered grabbing these Hitachi SUs, just as I bought the Weber DGV I found on this 22R-powered MGB a few months ago, but these are the not-so-desirable “flat-top Hitachis” and in the end I figured they wouldn’t be worth selling or trading.
Speaking of nightmare Hitachi-ized British smog carbs, what was the last year for a factory manual choke in a US-market car? Or is this just a light that comes on when an electric choke is engaged?
I was also tempted to buy this ignition switch with vintage Nissan Z key, but then decided to leave it for a lucky Z-owning junkyard shopper.
This car is very solid and— at least when I saw it a few weeks ago— nearly complete. By this time, I’m sure it has been picked over thoroughly by now.
Such an optimistic speedometer!


Comparisons between fully race-modified cars and their street counterparts are always suspect, but this ad does a good job of selling the 240Z.

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These things were noisy and tinny and cheap, but they were more reliable than the other crappy little econoboxes of the Middle Malaise Era.
They were also quite slow, thanks to the 60-horsepower 1A engine driving the front wheels. Yes, it looks like a rear-wheel-drive setup, but it’s really an engine-over-transaxle assembly that made a lot more sense once Toyota started making four-wheel-drive Tercels.
5-speed manual transmissions were still somewhat prestigious in 1980.
I’ve long thought that the vaguely finny-looking taillight treatment on this car resembled the setup on some BMC AD016 models.
Cloth seats, gas-sipping engine, no frills. These cars sold like crazy, but they weren’t worth fixing once they got to be 15 years old and now most of them are gone.


When ventriloquist dummies need to urinate, they must ride in Tercels.


“Has a longitudinal engine… unlike any Honda!”


It does pretty well in a crash test, considering its insubstantial construction.

01 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1980 Toyota Tercel Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/junkyard-find-1980-toyota-corolla-tercel/feed/ 44 Junkyard Find: 1980 Mercedes-Benz 450SL http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/junkyard-find-1980-mercedes-benz-450sl/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/junkyard-find-1980-mercedes-benz-450sl/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:00:15 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=477400 The Mercedes-Benz R107 is one of those cars that often has a vast difference between the typical perceived value and the typical price you can get when you try to sell one. I’ve seen plenty of these things in running condition for three-figure prices, and I’ve seen them fetch big bucks when they’re extremely nice. Once an R107 gets some blemishes and/or doesn’t run right, its value usually drops down to the scrap range, and that’s why they often show up in wrecking yards and even in 24 Hours of LeMons races. Here’s a Malaise Era 450SL that was an emblem of conspicuous consumption when new and still shows some signs of its former glory as it awaits The Crusher in a Denver wrecking yard.
I might need to go back and disassemble this HVAC control unit, just to see how its analog heart works. Probably a lot to go wrong inside, but odds are that it worked for at least a couple of decades.
Power came from a 180-horsepower, 4.5 liter SOHC V8 engine, which wasn’t bad for the darkest days of the Malaise Era. This car was a bit pokey, given that it scaled in at 3,595 pounds (!), but the luxury was 100% real.

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Of course, the Volaré and its Detroit rivals were taking a beating during the gloom of the Malaise Era, with ever-rising fuel prices and the swelling market share of the Japanese automakers. Not long after this car was built, Chrysler had to seek out loan guarantees from the federal government.

We all know about Ricardo Montalban’s ads for the Cordoba, but we mustn’t forget that Sergio Franchi‘s ads for the Volaré were nearly as suave. This car had a “special” suspension!
This sporty coupe came with bucket seats, tape stripes, and two-tone paint.
And, for practicality’s sake, the extraordinarily reliable Slant Six.

01 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 19 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 20 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 21 - 1977 Plymouth Volare Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/junkyard-find-1977-plymouth-volare/feed/ 91 Junkyard Find: 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/junkyard-find-1976-pontiac-grand-lemans/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/junkyard-find-1976-pontiac-grand-lemans/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:00:34 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=476159 “Personal luxury” became one of the few showroom bright spots for Detroit during the darkest days of the Malaise Era. The definition is a bit fuzzy around the edges, but the basic formula always involved a midsize-or-bigger two-door with a generous helping of disco-grade bling, maybe with some heraldic crests and pleather upholstery. Chrysler had the Cordoba, Ford had the Cougar, and GM had the Grand Prix, to name just a few of many examples of the genre. Why, even dowdy AMC got into the act with their Matador Barcelona. So many of these cars were built that you’ll still find examples now and then at self-serve wrecking yards. By 1976, personal luxury was being applied across whole lines, with broad strokes. Today’s find is one of the last of the big A-body LeMans family, built before the LeMans became a cruel Daewoo joke.
You had your Luxury LeMans, of course, but that car just wasn’t grand enough for the America of Watergate and the Fall of Saigon.
The French Cathouse Red interior fad reached its zenith with Japanese cars of the late 1980s (though Chrysler was still using up its stockpile of red velour well into the 1990s), but The General sure didn’t pull any punches with this car.
The Pontiac 350-cubic-inch V8 was one of the more reliable pushrod V8s of its time, but I’ve learned that I just get depressed when I look up horsepower figures on Malaise Era Detroit engines. Let’s pretend that this one made, say, 340 horses and leave it at that.
This clock almost certainly stopped working before the end of the 1970s, so I didn’t buy it for my collection. It looks cool, though.
Pontiac wasn’t going to let those 5 MPH crash bumpers take away their cars’ pointy snouts!

01 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 19 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 20 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 21 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 22 - 1976 Pontiac Grand LeMans Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/junkyard-find-1976-pontiac-grand-lemans/feed/ 63 Junkyard Find: 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1973-fiat-124-sport-spider/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1973-fiat-124-sport-spider/#comments Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:00:42 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=475473 Where do all these junkyard Fiat 124 Sport Spiders come from? You don’t see them on the street, you don’t see them half-covered by tarps and raccoon nests in driveways, and you don’t even see many of them at Italian car shows. And yet I’ve been seeing these cheaper-than-an-Alfa-Spider Italian sports cars at wrecking yards, at about the same rate, since I started visiting U-Pull-It in Oakland in the early 1980s. Here’s the latest example, a little green devil I spotted at U-Pull-&-Pay Denver last month.
Just in this series, we’ve seen this ’71, this ’75, this ’78, and this ’80, and we might as well add the 124′s little brother, this ’71 850 Sport Spider.
I’d like to show you photos of the Twin Cam engine that may or may not still live under the hood of this car (who knows, maybe someone with a sense of humor has swapped in a BMC B engine), but the hood release was stuck and I didn’t feel like freezing my fingers futzing with it for more than a few seconds.
The warning lights in these cars are junkyard gold— high-quality chrome and real glass lenses. I’ve used them in such projects as the Junkyard Boogaloo Boombox, the scratchbuilt instrument panel in my ’65 Impala project, and other projects. I didn’t grab these, because I’ve already got a lifetime supply in my parts stash.
What I’ve learned from all these 124 Sport Spiders that I’ve seen about to get crushed over the years is that one of these cars would make an excellent Ill-Advised Engine Swap Project. Hmmmm… it seems there’s a shop building swap bellhousings to bolt the 3-liter V6 out of an Alfa Romeo 164 to a non-transaxle, rear-wheel-drive Alfa transmission. If we listen to the Alfa Mafia, that engine makes 270 horses with mild (i.e., terrifyingly expensive) intake and exhaust modifications. Or, if you want to be boring (and not go broke), there’s always the Miata drivetrain donor.


This ad is for the ’80, but it’s pretty much the same car as today’s find, only with more smog control and uglier bumpers.

01 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1973-fiat-124-sport-spider/feed/ 54 Junkyard Find: 1979 AM General DJ-5G Jeep, With Factory Audi Power http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1979-am-general-dj-5g-with-factory-audi-power/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1979-am-general-dj-5g-with-factory-audi-power/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:00:16 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=474678 Even though the DJ Jeep was two-wheel-drive, Coloradans must really love them. I see DJ-5 “Mail Jeeps” in Denver-area wrecking yards all the time (for example, this ’82 and this ’72). I’ve mostly stopped photographing them for this series, because how much can anyone say about the steel box on wheels that delivered our mail for much of the 1970s? However, a Jeep with a factory-installed Audi engine is interesting, so here we go.
You could also get AMC Gremlins and Concords with Audi 2.0 liter engines, which means that Gremlins and Porsche 924s had lots of interchangeable parts (I need to remember this true fact next time I’m yelling at a LeMons miscreant with PCA patches all over his race suit). The one-year-only Audi-engined Jeep may be the rarest of all the Audi-fied AMCS, though.
To go with the mighty 95 horses of the Audi engine, the DJ-5G came with a Chrysler Torqueflite 904 automatic transmission.
As iron became rust in this Jeep, the lost mass was replaced by rodent nests. The interior of Uncle Sam’s former mail sled is very hanta-riffic now!
This dash is probably what Audi Designer Hell looks like.

01 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 19 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 20 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 21 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 22 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 23 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 24 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 25 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 26 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 27 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 01 - 1979 AM General DJ-5 Mail Jeep Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1979-am-general-dj-5g-with-factory-audi-power/feed/ 14 Junkyard Find: 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1974-mercedes-benz-450sl/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1974-mercedes-benz-450sl/#comments Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:00:51 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=472875 When I lived in California, I’d see R107s in self-service junkyards all the time; since moving to Denver a couple of years back, I see them only occasionally. There was this ’78 450SLC last summer and that was about it. Last week, though I found this screaming yellow Malaise Era kokainwagen.
This one entered the used-parts ecosystem in fairly beat/rusty condition (yes, Midwesterners, I know this is amateur-grade rust), and quite a few bits have already been picked from it.
I like these cars so much that I’ve been trying to buy the Rally Baby Racing ’75 450SL (which is street-licensed) for the last ten months. It’s a slow and heavy race car, but would look great on the street.
This engine would look great in a fenderless ’39 Opel, ja?

01 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1974-mercedes-benz-450sl/feed/ 35 Junkyard Find: 1976 Ford Torino http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1976-ford-torino/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1976-ford-torino/#comments Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:00:37 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=472751 Torinos (and Montegos) were among the Malaisiest of Malaise Era machines, so it seems fitting to follow up the ’75 Gran Torino Junkyard Find with today’s ’76. Yes, just as Nixon’s resignation came just before the Fall of Saigon, Ford kept following up one big, slow midsize car with even bigger and slower versions.
This may be a Ford Elite, the short-lived personal-luxury-coupe version of the Torino, but the Wikipedia entry indicates that the Elite came standard with cloth seats, not the vinyl seats seen here. The emblems are all gone, so this could still be an Elite with a seat swap.
Just to confuse everybody, Ford added the 351M (a destroked 400M) to its array of (nominally) 351-cubic-inch pushrod V8s. That means that Windsor/Cleveland/Modified mixups will be driving parts-counter guys crazy until the last Ford V8 gets melted down.
This car is a bit rustier than the ’75 we just saw, but it’s an (allegedly) more desirable coupe and you’d expect such cars to be worth more than scrap value. Not in Denver, it seeems!

02 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1976 Ford Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1976-ford-torino/feed/ 70 Junkyard Find: 1975 Ford Gran Torino http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1975-ford-gran-torino/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1975-ford-gran-torino/#comments Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:00:09 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=472541 A full-on Malaise Era midsize Ford sedan has just about zero collector value, so the only way one can stay out of The Crusher’s jaws is to keep on running. Here’s one in Denver that finally gave up after 37 years.
The most famous Gran Torino these days is the ’72 driven by Clint Eastwood in film named after the car, but that was a sporty two-door. Likewise, the ’75 in Starsky and Hutch. Then there’s the ’72 Gran Torino wagon depicted in Robert Bechtle’s famous painting, Gran Torino Alameda. As for Gran Torino sedans, the closest thing to a famous example I can think of is the ’73 driven by The Dude in The Big Lebowski. Today’s Junkyard Find is about the closest thing to The Dude’s car that I’ve seen in many years.
This one is a bit battered and the interior is ugly, but I wouldn’t call it used up. It’s not rusty and all the major pieces are there, but who wants to spend any money to restore a ’75 Gran Torino sedan, or even keep one alive?
It will just make us all depressed, discussing the horsepower numbers of the 1975 351 Windsor engine. Torque was pretty good, and these cars weren’t as sluggish as you’d think.
I’ve always thought this era of Ford dog-dish hubcaps looked good.
We’ll be seeing the ’62 Valiant parked near this Ford in a future Junkyard Find.
With scrap cars going for $240/ton in Denver, the days are numbered for machines like this one.

01 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 19 - 1975 Ford Gran Torino Down On the Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 1973 Ford Gran Torino - Picture courtesy of IMCDB ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/junkyard-find-1975-ford-gran-torino/feed/ 52 Junkyard Find: 1982 Dodge Ram 50 http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-dodge-ram-50/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-dodge-ram-50/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:00:11 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=470519 There was a time, when American truck shoppers were willing to tolerate the shame of driving small pickups, when the members of the Detroit Big Three couldn’t/wouldn’t build their own and thus sold rebadged Japanese trucks. GM had the Isuzu-built Chevy LUV, Ford had the Mazda-built Ford Courier, and Chrysler had various flavors of the Mitsubishi Forte aka Mighty Max. In 1982, you could get your Forte as a Mighty Max, a Plymouth Arrow, or a Dodge Ram 50. Though you could buy the Ram 50 until 1986, examples of this truck are very rare these days. Here’s one that I spotted in a Denver yard last week.
There was no mistaking this truck for a luxury vehicle. Cloth bench seat, manual transmission, no air conditioning.
Power came from the 2-liter Mitsubishi Astron L4 engine, which wasn’t quite up to, say, Toyota R reliability but made decent power.
The tape-stripe graphics were very much of their time.

Whitewall tires standard, in the “Ram 50 Royal,” whatever that was. One of the weirder ads of the Late Malaise Era.

12 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 02 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 03 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 04 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 05 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 06 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 07 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 08 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 09 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 10 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin 11 - 1982 Dodge Ram 50 Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee 'Badge Engineering' Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-dodge-ram-50/feed/ 28 Junkyard Find: 1983 Chevrolet Citation http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1983-chevrolet-citation/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1983-chevrolet-citation/#comments Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:00:54 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=470051 We’ve seen an ’81 Citation and an ’82 Citation in this series, so let’s continue down GM’s Bad Memory Lane with a 1983 version of the car that damaged The General’s image even more than the Vega. Somehow, this car stayed on the street— or at least out of the wrecking yard— for 29 years, but now it awaits crushing in a Denver self-serve wrecking yard.
The Citation hung on until the 1985 model year, and… wait a minute, is that a choke warning light on the dash of a 1983 car?
This one has the same 2.8 V6 that went into the Fiero.
Yep, those are molded-in stitches in the maroon vinyl seat upholstery.

15 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 01 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1983 Chevrolet Citation Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1983-chevrolet-citation/feed/ 106 Junkyard Find: 1982 Toyota Corona Luxury Edition http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-toyota-corona-luxury-edition/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-toyota-corona-luxury-edition/#comments Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:00:34 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=469889 As I always mention every time I write about the Toyota Corona, my very first car was a 50-buck ’69 Corona sedan, and so I always notice them. You don’t see many Coronas these days, though I’ve managed to find this ’70 coupe, this ’70 sedan, and this ’79 sedan in wrecking yards during the last year. All three of those cars were in Northern California, but today’s Junkyard Find awaits The Crusher’s jaws in Colorado.
1982 was the last model year for Corona sales in the United States; the front-wheel-drive Camry took over the rear-drive Corona’s role the following year. By current Lexus standards, the luxury in this “Luxury Edition” wasn’t particularly plush.
This AC switch looks very familiar to me, and it should— I used the same switch as the main power control on the Junkyard Boogaloo Boombox, which even now provides music in the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™ garage.
In addition to refrigerated air, the Luxury Edition Corona also came with a rear defroster.
Somebody (probably a Toyota truck owner) has already grabbed the 22R engine out of this car.
Not only does this car come with a Grapic Equalizer With Amplifier, it has a Phase Diffusion button. Ah, the early 1980s!

22 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 01 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 19 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 20 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 21 - 1982 Toyota Corona Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-toyota-corona-luxury-edition/feed/ 33 Junkyard Find: 1982 Toyota Cressida http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-toyota-cressida/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-toyota-cressida/#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:00:12 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=469207 I always notice the Cressida when I see an example in a wrecking yard, and the last two years have seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of Toyota’s pre-Lexus rear-drive luxury sedan going to The Crusher. I suppose that means that the balance between real-world value and cost to fix mechanical problems has finally tilted against the Cressida. We’ve seen this ’80, this ’84, this ’87, this ’89, and this ’92 in the Junkyard Find Series so far, and now we’re going to go all Malaise Era with today’s ’82.
I found this car, in subdued Ignore Me Red, languishing in a Northern California self-service yard back in September.
Only 123,760 miles on the clock, which implies either long-term storage or a driving-to-church-on-Sundays-only long-term owner.
Toyota really needs to bring back emblems like this one.
The 5M-E L6 engine for 1982 made a respectable-for-its-day 116 horsepower. Yes, golf carts have more than that nowadays. What of it?

By 1990, just about every car had some form of electronic fuel injection. In 1982, however, EFI was still fairly exotic.
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]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/junkyard-find-1982-toyota-cressida/feed/ 41 Junkyard Find: 1978 Mercedes-Benz 300CD http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1978-mercedes-benz-300cd/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1978-mercedes-benz-300cd/#comments Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:00:17 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=467905 Mercedes-Benz W123 coupes aren’t so easy to find these days, though I was able to spot this Crusher-bound ’78 280CE last year. Last week, in a different Denver-area yard, I ran across today’s find: an oil-burning ’78 300CD.
With the 3-liter OM617 five-cylinder diesel engine, a strong contender for the Most Reliable Car Engine of All Time Award, these things usually get scrapped only when they get too ugly to be worth fixing. 236,529 miles isn’t much for one of these cars.
The W123 coupes were sort of frivolous purchases at the time— if you wanted just two doors in your German luxury car, you were expected to get a BMW 6 Series and maybe a gold razor-blade medallion to get tangled in your exposed chest hair.
This one isn’t rusty and the body is pretty straight, but fixing the trashed interior wasn’t worth the cost to its final owner.

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In the decades before too many chili dogs and cigarettes killed Jerry Garcia, Deadheads would follow the band around the country in various hooptiefied motor vehicles. While most of them drove stuff like battered old Detroit pickups and random members of the K-Car family, some followed archetypal hippie tradition and toured in Volkswagen Transporters. This is such a van.
The skull-and-lightning-bolt artwork from the Grateful Dead’s Steal Your Face live album became the centerpiece of 900 billion emulations, variations, and permutations, on stickers sold in Dead show parking lots as well as homemade VW van paint jobs.
This van has two Steal Your Face Skull stickers that I could find, and I’m sure there were more.
The “Free Tibet” sticker might as well have been issued to all Vanagon owners back in the late 1980s.
I pulled the left front marker-light lens for my friend’s van, but couldn’t figure out the other items on his wish list.
He needs some component of the engine cover, or maybe it’s the radiator puke tank. Anyway, I couldn’t decipher his cryptic text messages, so he’ll need to go back and get that part himself.
Because, like, life is all a circle, maaaan, I happened to be crawling around in this van on the same day that I and 1,325,809 other Colorado voters chose to legalize marijuana in our state. While I hadn’t been firing up a bowl of Hickenlooper Haywire in a Chong-sourced four-footer prior to seeing this van, I still managed to be impressed by these homemade quasi-Hawaiian curtains. How many times had these curtains absorbed the strains of the Dead’s disco anthem on a crappy cassette deck during their lives, I wondered.
Well, it was like the ghost of Owsley Stanley himself appeared and told me I needed these genuine Deadhead curtains for my decidedly un-hippie Dodge van, so I bought the complete set for five bucks.

26 - Steal Your Face - Picture courtesy of the Grateful Dead 01 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 19 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 21 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 22 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 23 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 24 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 25 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 26 - 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1983-volkswagen-vanagon-steal-your-face-edition/feed/ 30 Junkyard Find: 1980 Mazda RX-7, with Incredibly 80s Custom Paint http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1980-mazda-rx-7-with-incredibly-80s-custom-paint/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1980-mazda-rx-7-with-incredibly-80s-custom-paint/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:00:21 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=467493 First-generation RX-7s aren’t uncommon Junkyard Finds, even though the youngest ones are 27 years old now. However, not many full-on early-to-mid-80s custom paint jobs show up at junkyards these days. Here’s one I found in Denver last week.
Purple, pink, and gold with pinstripes!
With a 5-digit odometer, there’s no way of knowing how many miles this car traveled during its 32 years on the planet. 88,000? 188,000? 288,000? It seems pretty clean, given its current parking space, so the first figure could be the right one.
It’s possible that this wild paint job got sprayed on while Jimmy Carter was still in the White House, or perhaps it was applied five years ago. So many mysteries with a car like this!

28 MPG in an early RX-7? Ah, for the days when highway fuel economy was calculated at 42 MPH… down a steep grade… drafting behind a line of tractor-trailers.

14 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1980 Mazda RX-7 Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1980-mazda-rx-7-with-incredibly-80s-custom-paint/feed/ 17 Junkyard Find: 1979 MGB, With Power By Toyota http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1979-mgb-with-power-by-toyota/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1979-mgb-with-power-by-toyota/#comments Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:00:39 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=467069 As someone who spent a few years using an MGB-GT as a daily driver, my junkyard radar is pretty well attuned to detect Crusher-bound examples of the iconic British sports car. Incredible quantities of Bs were built over a run that lasted close to 20 years, and of course you’ll want to read Ate Up With Motor‘s excellent history of the breed after you’re done here. The biggest problem with this sturdy little car (other than the Prince of Darkness) was the lack of power from its antiquated pushrod engine, so a previous owner of this car solved that problem by adding a Taliban-grade Toyota truck engine.
I own a stranded-in-California Toyota 20R-powered Austin-Healey Sprite myself, but I’m not enough of a Toyota truck (or Celica) fanatic to be able to tell the 2.2 liter 20R from the later 2.4 liter 22R at a glance. The swap appears to have been done many years ago, so I’m guessing that this is the earlier 20R. Either way, this swap should nearly double the horsepower and way more than double the torque of a black-bumper MGB, with no-doubt-pleasing results.
This car looks to have spent quite a few years sitting outdoors with no top, so it probably wasn’t worth restoring.
The Toyota R is all about grinding out the truck-style low-RPM torque, and it tends to blow up in spectacular fashion when you spin it, so the Toyota 4A is probably a more appropriate sports-car engine swap.
I was at this Denver junkyard to get a Subaru XT Turbo digital dash, but I couldn’t resist plucking the Weber DGV 32/36 carburetor from this car. I’ll trade it for van parts.

19 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 02 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 03 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 04 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 05 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 06 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 07 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 08 - 1985 Subaru XT Turbo Down On The Junkyard - Picture Courtesy of Murilee Martin 09 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 10 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 11 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 12 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 13 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 14 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 15 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 16 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 17 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin 18 - 1979 MGB with Toyota 20R Engine Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin ]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1979-mgb-with-power-by-toyota/feed/ 27 Junkyard Find: 1983 Chrysler E-Class http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1983-chrysler-e-class/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/11/junkyard-find-1983-chrysler-e-class/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:00:42 +0000 Murilee Martin http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=465840 We might as well follow up last week’s Aries K wagon Junkyard Find with another member of the Chrysler-saving K family. I’ve been intermittently fascinated by the E-Class, so this Crusher-bound example in Denver caught my eye.
We laugh at the idea of a blinged-out K-Car with a vaguely Benzified name today, but the E-Class boasted a tremendous amount of interior space for its fairly small external dimensions, and the ride was much nicer than that of, say, the Diplomat-based ’82 New Yorker.
The E was bigger and plusher than the mechanically similar LeBaron, but not quite as luxurious as its de-Diplomat-ized ’83 New Yorker sibling. GM and Ford had nothing that could compare to the combination of fuel economy, interior space, and bling-per-buck of this car, though their rear-drive V8 machinery would obliterate the (non-turbo-equipped) Chryslers in a drag race.

No mention of Corinthian Leather, but it was an option on the E-Class.
Instead of the traditional Whorehouse Red Quasi-Velour™ interior seen in so many Detroit cars of this era, this car has Bodily Fluid-Friendly Blue Quasi-Velour­™, straight out of the pages of a custom-van supply catalog.
I might need to go back and buy this tasteful emblem.

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330,201 miles. That’s 11,000 miles per year for 30 years. There’s no telling how many head gaskets it has been through, but an impressive achievement by any measure.
I’m sure that some 1979-82 Preludes came with interiors in colors other than French Cathouse Red, but I can’t remember seeing any.

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