Saturday Morning Giggle

I can't tell you how many wrecks I hauled home when I was young and full of confidence that I could restore them.

Bittersweet memories. Like Bob, above me, I wanted to restore every wreck I saw. I only bought two. My first was (Wait till you hear this Bob) a 1931 Model A cabriolet. I was 13 through 15. I got a 52 Merc in it, started on the extensive body work that it needed and sold it for $600 to a father & son who KNEW what they were doing. I took the money and bought a 'running' and gorgeous '57 Ford Fairlane 500 - Black & White.

The second was junked VW Bug convertible. I bought it over the winter and it deteriorated even more. Sold that for peanuts but learned my lesson!!   

This thread reminds me of my feeling so sorry for some of the old junkers I observed during my frequent visits to various wrecking yards as a teenager scouring for parts, etc.  Many of them were lovely, cool cars...just old and "worthless" at the time as they needed perhaps an engine or trans repair or had light crash damage.  I know it is illogical to feel sorrow for a car and knew that at the time.....but just couldn't shake that feeling.  I guess it's mostly because I see such beauty in automobiles, especially vintage ones that have served so well.  I still have it actually but have learned to ignore it much better with age....lol. 

@jack-dodds Nicely stated. Like many here, you're a true car guy in my book.

@sizedoesmatter Yep John......an absolute hopeless case.  Lol.

Posted by: @sizedoesmatter

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@jack-dodds Nicely stated. Like many here, you're a true car guy in my book.

 I get those same feelings too. It bothers me when I pass a nice car in a parking lot and see it used as a trash bin; with garbage all over the interior. Or see someone slam a door unmercifully. 

@perrone1 I hear ya Tony.  The epitome of this for me is seeing a basically still nice vintage car languishing in someone's back yard with the crud of nature slowly collecting on it.

@jack-dodds 

Yes. Halfway covered in some ratty tarp, up on blocks about to disintegrate. I hope they get coal in their stockings!  

Posted by: @perrone1

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Posted by: @sizedoesmatter

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@jack-dodds Nicely stated. Like many here, you're a true car guy in my book.

+1!

 I get those same feelings too. It bothers me when I pass a nice car in a parking lot and see it used as a trash bin; with garbage all over the interior. Or see someone slam a door unmercifully. 

 

In the late '50s, a guy on my street has a 1937 or 1938 Dodge coupe sitting in his backyard. No rust. I would sneak into his yard when he wasn't home just to look at it and wonder why he didn't drive it. It was gorgeous. Soon thereafter, I heard rumours that he intended to cut off the roof and make it into a convertible. I knew he had no automotive experience and if he did it, he would be left with junk. Sure enough, that is what he did,cut off the roof with no bracing inside or strengthening of the frame. The last time a saw that coupe was when it was being loaded on a flatbead to be hauled off to the scrapyard.

Posted by: @kenspear

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In the late '50s, a guy on my street has a 1937 or 1938 Dodge coupe sitting in his backyard. No rust. I would sneak into his yard when he wasn't home just to look at it and wonder why he didn't drive it. It was gorgeous. Soon thereafter, I heard rumours that he intended to cut off the roof and make it into a convertible. I knew he had no automotive experience and if he did it, he would be left with junk. Sure enough, that is what he did,cut off the roof with no bracing inside or strengthening of the frame. The last time a saw that coupe was when it was being loaded on a flatbead to be hauled off to the scrapyard.

One of my greatest joys is seeing an old car off in a yard somewhere that has been left to become nothing more than a mouse community.  To me, they are treasures and they always get me to pull off the road and pay it a visit. 

Some of them only need a second chance to take someone to the market or in to the city.  As a little boy, my Dad would stop by a junk yard now and then to get a headlight, taillight, a water-pump or some other minor part and while he was dickering with the owner of the place, I was out walking the yard, looking at the rows of forgotten memories. 

Recalling these thoughts reminded me of this book I have on my book shelf.  There is Art in every photo in it.

@georgeschire, yes! Junkyards were magical places, with so many stories and so many fascinating cars.

@jkuvakas 

Back in the early 1970s for a couple of years I worked in a shipping and receiving warehouse that was located next to an auto salvage yard.  They would bring the cars in on long flat-bed trucks, pile them up and then crush them.