#JunkyardFind

Toyota sold the E70 Corolla in the United States for the 1980 through 1983 model years, and it was the final rear-wheel-drive-only generation of the Corolla. We saw a discarded 1983 AE72 Corolla wagon in California over the summer, and now it's the turn of a sporty TE72 Corolla Liftback that I spotted recently in a Denver-area boneyard.

From the 1962 through 1979 model years, General Motors moved close to five million units of the Chevy II/Nova compact car in North America. This was the Chevy II/Nova, and I've found a late-production example in a Denver car graveyard.

The Mazda-Ford partnership brought us quite a few Familia-based cars during the 1990s, including the post-1990 Escort and 1991-1994 Mercury Capri. The chassis of the bigger Mazda Capella spawned some interesting US-market offspring as well, and we've got one of them for today's Junkyard Find.

After months of seeing only 20th century vehicles in this series, a car from our current century was last week's Junkyard Find. We'll remain in the 21st century this week, with a very rare example of one of GM's early attempts to sell hybrid-electric cars.

Back in June, our learned friend Sajeev Mehta traveled from Houston to Colorado, where he learned about single-digit humidity and accompanied me to a number of junkyards along the I-25 corridor. He pointed out this South Korean rarity at a boneyard in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The American Honda Motor Company sold the first-generation Accord in the United States from 1976 through 1981, and that car brought Honda success here far beyond that achieved by motorcycles and Civics. Today's Junkyard Find is one of those early Accords, found last year in a Colorado car graveyard.

Let's say you traveled back in time to 1987 with enough money to buy a brand-new Mercedes-Benz 420 SEL, which was $54,440 (about $153,989 in 2024 dollars). But wait! The General would sell you a sleek new Pininfarina-styled roadster built in both Turin and Hamtramck, for just $54,700. What do you do?

1975 was a wonderful year for Detroit ( and Kenosha) personal luxury coupes, whose heraldic crest badges and crypto-velour upholstery made it clear to those damn commies that a life queuing up for sawdust sausages and— if you were lucky— a shot at a new Zaporozhets wasn't much of a life at all. Today's Junkyard Find is an example of the Chevy Monte Carlo's more affordable brother, found in a car graveyard in Carson City, Nevada.

The first-generation Toyota Celica was sold in the United States from the 1971 through 1977 model years, and this Mustang-influenced coupe became a frequent sight on American roads. The second-generation Celica debuted here as a 1978 model, and I've found one of those first-year cars in an extremely hot Northern California car graveyard.

The last time we saw a Detroit station wagon in this series was nearly a year ago, when we admired a Chevy Vega Kammback. How about properly imposing American wagons with rear-wheel-drive and V8 engines? Would you believe our most recent one was an LTD Country Squire in 2016?

We took a look at a Mitsubishi small pickup with Dodge badges last month, and now it's the turn of a Mazda small pickup with Ford badges. I spotted this Courier at a self-service boneyard in Carson City, Nevada, last month.

The American Motors Corporation was formed by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator and the Hudson Motor Car Company in 1954. The Hudson brand went away after 1957, which means cars bearing the name of the founder of Hudson's Department Store are tough to find in junkyards today. I managed the feat on a recent trip to a Northern California car graveyard, and here's the car.

The third-generation GM G-Series van was introduced as a 1971 model, and it stayed in production in essentially the same form through 1996. Early examples of this long-lived design are tough to find these days, so I was happy to find this '76 in a North Carolina self-service yard a couple of months back.

The second-generation (1982-1985) Accord made Soichiro Honda's company a sales colossus in the United States, doing away with any residual impression that it was a mere motorcycle manufacturer with a sideline in four-wheelers. The last time we saw a discarded example in this series was way back in 2016, so today we'll admire one found in Northern California with close to a half-million miles on the clock.

Last year, we saw as early second-generation Dodge Grand Caravan in a Colorado junkyard in this series. Discarded examples of the first-generation Chrysler minivans have been much more difficult to find, but I ran across this '87 Caravan in Colorado Springs last week.