Junkyard Treasure!

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

After I visited the Brain-Melting Colorado Junkyard last month, I couldn’t stop thinking about the car project I’ve been wanting to build more than any other (including even a Zaporozhets with a Tatra V8 swap, and that’s saying something) in recent years: a 1940-1954 American sedan with well-aged patina, 21st-century Detroit V8, manual transmission, and modern suspension and brakes. So, last weekend I returned to the largest assortment of cars from that era that I’ve ever seen, to get some ideas. While wandering around, looking at Kaiser Virginians and Buick Specials, I glanced up and saw the scene in the above photograph.

That got me thinking about my friend Walker Canada‘s great artwork, and the “Junkyard Treasure” graphic he designed for the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™ website a few years back. And, as a gift from the MMLB™ to you, I’ve added a downloadable desktop-wallpaper-sized version of the Junkyard Rainbow photograph (in case you’ve become tired of the Junkyard Wallpaper and Thrown Rod Wallpaper files you already have lowering the property values of your workplace computer). Enjoy.


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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  • SCE to AUX Figure 160 miles EPA if it came here, minus the usual deductions.It would be a dud in the US market.
  • Analoggrotto EV9 sales are rivalling the Grand Highlander's and this is a super high eATP vehicle with awesome MSRPs. Toyota will need to do more than compete with a brand who has major equity and support from the automotive journalism community. The 3 row game belongs to HMC with the Telluride commanding major marketshare leaps this year even in it's 5th hallowed year of ultra competitive sales.
  • Analoggrotto Probably drives better than Cprescott
  • Doug brockman I havent tried the Honda but my 2023 RAV4 is great. I had a model 20 years ago which. Was way too little
  • Master Baiter The picture is of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
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