Junkyard Find: 1992 Ford Tempo GL

To gather the photographs for the Junkyard Find series, I do a lot of walking around self-service wrecking yards, and mostly I’m just tuning out the common cars as background noise. You know, the 15-to-20-year-old Detroit stuff that won’t have any collector value until almost all are gone (as happened with the Pinto and Vega). The chaff. Right now, the Taurus/Sable is king of the Ford sections of these yards (I counted 188 of them in a 300-car section in a California yard not long ago), but you also see large numbers of Tempos and Topazes. Once I decided to pay attention to the lowly Tempo, I was surprised by the number of not-particularly-trashed examples I found at my local yard. Today, and just today, let’s pay attention to one of the most common vehicles in American self-serve junkyards today: the Tempo.

Read more
  • MaintenanceCosts Poorly packaged, oddly proportioned small CUV with an unrefined hybrid powertrain and a luxury-market price? Who wouldn't want it?
  • MaintenanceCosts Who knows whether it rides or handles acceptably or whether it chews up a set of tires in 5000 miles, but we definitely know it has a "mature stance."Sounds like JUST the kind of previous owner you'd want…
  • 28-Cars-Later Nissan will be very fortunate to not be in the Japanese equivalent of Chapter 11 reorganization over the next 36 months, "getting rolling" is a luxury (also, I see what you did there).
  • MaintenanceCosts RAM! RAM! RAM! ...... the child in the crosswalk that you can't see over the hood of this factory-lifted beast.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Yes all the Older Land Cruiser’s and samurai’s have gone up here as well. I’ve taken both vehicle ps on some pretty rough roads exploring old mine shafts etc. I bought mine right before I deployed back in 08 and got it for $4000 and also bought another that is non running for parts, got a complete engine, drive train. The mice love it unfortunately.