#Malaise

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I usually don’t pay much attention to VW Transporters in the junkyard, but I have a friend with a Vanagon (he’s an industrial designer and decided that this VW— which I believe to be one of the worst motor vehicles ever built— says positive things about his sense of style and appreciation of good design) who needed a bunch of parts for his hopeless project van. So, when I found this ’83 at a Denver self-service wrecking yard, I grabbed a few bits and took some photos.

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.

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.

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.

The Honda Prelude became bigger, faster, and sportier as the 1980s progressed, so we often forget that the first-generation version was such a little car.

We saw a historically interesting but marketplace-irrelevant 1991 Honda Accord wagon Junkyard Find last week, which means that it’s now time to look at the car that made Honda in North America: the first-gen Accord. Here’s a well-worn but still fairly solid ’80 that I spotted in a Denver yard not long ago.

Thanks to rental-car companies, the Granada was once seen in great numbers on American roads. The Granada remained a fairly common sight well into the 1990s, but they’re just about all gone now. We saw this Crusher-bound ’77 Granada Ghia in California last month, and I found today’s Junkyard Find in a nearby East Bay wrecking yard on the same trip.

When shopping for personal luxury coupes in the late 1970s, you might have bought the 1977 Mercury Cougar (seen in yesterday’s Junkyard Find), or maybe a Chrysler Cordoba, or perhaps even an AMC Matador Barcelona. If you wanted to go with a General Motors product for your long-hooded, big-on-the-outside/small-on-the-inside coupe, Pontiac had just the car: the Grand Prix!