#Sedan

Back in 2006, Jonny Lieberman reviewed the then-new Mazdaspeed6 for this publication. He deemed it ugly and slow off the line, but didn't question the reason for its existence. As it turned out, very few car shoppers felt the need to own a Mazdaspeed6, and it got the axe after just two model years. Here's one of the handful that made it out of dealerships, found in a self-service boneyard in Tulsa, Oklahoma a few months back.

The Ford Escort began life in 1955, in Britain (just a year after World War II-era food rationing finally ended), as a cheapified version of the Ford Squire wagon. After the pinnacle of rear-wheel-drive Escort action on that side of the Atlantic, a front-wheel-drive version appeared over there; a not-so-closely-related North American cousin showed up as a 1981 model.

In a rare double feature, Hyundai threw the covers off a pair of updates today instead of choosing to drag the news cycle out over a couple of weeks. Even more rare? The rigs in question are both sedans.

For a few years after the end of World War II, Detroit's automakers sold mildly facelifted prewar designs while they made the switch back to peacetime production. Chrysler managed the feat for the 1949 model year; we admired a Plymouth Special Deluxe sedan from that year in a Colorado car graveyard last summer, and today we're going to take a look at an example of one of the last of the stopgap postwar Chrysler products: this '48 Dodge in a yard just south of Denver.

We interrupt the stream of breathless news from places like the crushingly self-important Monterey Car Week to bring you fascinating pricing details of the somnambulant 2024 Nissan Altima.

Over the last couple of decades, the Nissan Altima has become the butt of countless online jokes and is now generally considered the most wretchedly disposable of US-market motor vehicles. We can assume that this is the result of so many years of ex-fleet Altimas being dumped into the market after full depreciation, coupled with a general sense of utter dysfunction in Nissan HQ. In any case, the Altima is an icon now, and I've spent years trying to find a first-year example in the car graveyards I frequent. Finally, in a Denver-area boneyard, I found this battered '93 GXE sedan.

When the first Hyundai Excels appeared on American streets as 1986 models, bearing shockingly cheap price tags, did anyone imagine that someday there would be a big, ostentatious Hyundai luxury sedan with serious V8 power available here? It happened, and I found one of those machines in a car graveyard in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a few weeks back.

Score one for the vanishingly few people who still prefer a sedan over an SUV (read: just about everyone working here). BMW has introduced a new 5 Series sedan, one which will be available either as a gasser or an EV when it goes on sale later this year.

Stylists at the Big T have re-upped the Nightshade trim for their Corolla. Set to appear as an option on the sedan, hatchback, and hybrid models, the package will bring some visual interest to the brand’s popular compact car.

General Motors built cars on the N Platform and its derivatives from the 1985 through 2005 model years, and five-speed manual transmissions were available on various N-based machines throughout that time. Very few American buyers of these cars were willing to operate three pedals by the dawn of the 21st century, but I have managed to find a five-speed-equipped Olds Alero in a Denver self-service car graveyard.

Looking at most dealer lots, there’s a fair argument to be made that crossovers and SUVs have rudely – and perhaps permanently – shoved sedans into the bin. But the venerable body style is still kicking at some brands, selling in solid numbers and providing an option for smart customers who’d rather not copy their neighbors.

Ok, so the musically inclined will be quick to point out there isn’t really a key of H sharp, but who are we to stand in the way of a decent headline pun? Hyundai has hauled the covers off its latest Sonata, and the sedan is certainly a looker.

Chrysler began building cars on the midsize B-Body platform for the 1962 model year, and production continued all the way through the final B-based Cordobas and Magnums in 1979. Today's Junkyard Find is one of the earliest Dodge B-Bodies: a 1963 Polara spotted in a Silicon Valley self-service yard last fall.

From the 1966 through 1997 model years, American car shoppers could walk into an Oldsmobile dealership and drive out in a new Cutlass Supreme. During its peak sales years of the middle 1970s through the middle 1980s, the Cutlass Supreme reigned as one of the best-selling cars in the land. Today's Junkyard Find, found in a Denver-area car graveyard, comes from the often-overlooked twilight years of Cutlass Supreme production.

We haven't seen a 1960s Chrysler A-Body Junkyard Find since 2014, so the time seemed right to share this well-preserved '64 Valiant V-200 sedan that I spotted recently in a Denver-area boneyard.