Junk yards are no place for a car guy

Growing up in south Jersey, I remember going by the local junk yards and trying to catch a glimpse of what cars might be there as my parents sped past in our Datsun. A small one nearby always had a rusty late-'60s Olds Toronado living out front among the weeds, and an even bigger yard had a pieced-together '68 Camaro perched on the roof, complete with a yellow rattle-can paint job.

To my young mind, there was all kinds of automotive gold behind those fences. Why, I'll bet there are old Corvettes, Porsches, and probably a Ferrari or two languishing in a back corner, just ready to be plucked out and restored!

When I turned 18, I set out one day in search of parts for our trusty Datsun, and was allowed to wander through my first junk yard. It was nothing like I'd imagined. I'd peruse rows and rows of milquetoast family sedans stacked on top of each other, and when I would stumble across the occasional cool car, it had been smashed nearly beyond recognition, and stripped bare by automotive vultures who had been feeding on it for years. It was really quite sad. 

But joy returned to me when I spotted a blue 1982 Datsun 310, just like mine. It even seemed to be in great shape, and I was hoping it had the parts I needed. Unfortunately, it was 12 feet above me, stacked on top of three other cars. A well-meaning employee with a forklift kindly asked if I'd like a better look and, upon seeing my smile, proceeded to punch two holes in the side of the pretty Datsun with the forks, pluck it from the top of the pile and drop it to the ground at my feet, bending the unibody frame in the process. The poor little blue car lay broken and battered in front of me. I lifted the hatchback, didn't find what I was looking for, but thanked the forklift operator for his efforts. He smiled and waved as he picked up the car, and put it in the crusher. Twenty seconds later, it was an unrecognizable blue slab of metal.

It felt like I'd left my heart in that car.

I've always had a personal attachment to cars, and while I've never been one to assign names to them, I often find myself thinking back on what the car and I have been through together. I'd look at the back corner of my old Datsun and remember it being dragged along an embankment when my father fell asleep on a family road trip to North Carolina. I'd look at my friend's Cadillac, and remember driving with the windows down and grinning while we'd blast it down a back road. I'd sit in my old Mazda3, and remember the day I brought it home from the dealership - the only brand-new car I've ever purchased. 

As I walk through junkyards, I can't help but look at the mangled, destroyed cars, and wonder what memories still lie in their chassis. Maybe that green car had an epic road trip. Or maybe someone got their first kiss in the back seat of the red one. One day, someone was overjoyed to have purchased that silver one brand-new, and drove it home full of pride. It makes me sad to think that, like most scrapped cars, they will eventually be destroyed, and forever erasing those automotive memories.

I recently had to make a trip to a local junk yard, a massive facility out by the railroad tracks. It's much better organized than the ones I grew up with, but the cars seem to be more mangled now than I remember them being in my younger days. I find myself slightly relieved when I stumble upon a Triumph Spitfire and an Alfa Romeo Spider of the same vintage keeping company in a back corner. But alas, they're both stripped bare, the Alfa's windshield frame has been cut off and thrown aside, and the rest of it has been there so long, it is nearly unrecognizable.

I try to remind myself that many of these cars will be recycled into new ones, ready to start new memories for their owners. But the romantic in me still weeps over the carcasses, and can't help but feel sorry for the now-faceless spirits languishing among the rows. 

As for my Datsun, it blew an engine and eventually found its way to the same scrapyard as that blue Datsun on the pile. I was glad I wasn't home when they came to pick it up. It turns out all those memories were only worth a total of $75.

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On a side note, my favorite junkyard relic was an old Pontiac Fiero GT that was in a yard in New Jersey. The car had obviously burned to the ground from an engine fire. However, the yard decided to keep the entire car because the driver's door was absolutely perfect.

Holladay's Used Auto Parts, where Christian found the little, blue Datsun.

Photo courtesy of Google Maps

Car #1 - The Datsun

It was a sunny day in 1981 when my parents and I drove up to Woodbury, NJ to pick up the new car - a 1982 Datsun 310 GX. At the time, you could get a 310 in a 2-door coupe, a 2-door hatch, and a 4-door hatch. Ours was the latter, though I'm still not sure what the "GX" badge meant. But, since it was a 1982 model, that meant it was the last of the "Datsun" badged cars, and under the GX was written, "By Nissan". It was also the last year for the 310.

Ours was a light metallic blue with blue interior. This, oddly enough, caused a rift in our household since my father considered it a, "cool grey". "Don't argue with me - I'M AN ARTIST!" he'd quip.

But my father loved this car, and drove it daily for years. I think he really enjoyed the utilitarian-ness of the hatchback, and it wasn't long before he'd line the interior with a tarp and fill it full of tree branches and grass clippings.

The car saw some action through the years, too. It's major christening came on a family road trip when all three of us fell asleep, and awoke to my father over-correcting like a madman. We crossed three lanes of traffic, and slid onto the grass median in the middle of interstate 95 in Virginia, damaging the drive axles and CV joints. Later on, its driver's door was backed into and replaced with one of the (almost) same color, and another incident resulted in a crumpled rear quarter panel which my father had repaired by a man at the local junk yard and a hammer. This repair also resulted in a mismatched tail light, but it passed my father's idea of safety, so it stayed.

After 10 years, and 125k miles or so, the car was passed on to me. By then, the hammered-out quarter panel and bumpers were rusting out, the pinstripes were peeling off, and the LR door no longer opened. But it was mine, and I drove the remaining three doors off of it.

The engine was a mighty 1.5 liter putting out an astounding 67hp through a new for '82 5-speed manual. But since the car probably weighed just over a ton, and had pretty short gearing, it was a spritely little car. In fifth gear, it would top out at 80mph, but if you shifted down into fourth, it developed enough torque to pull you to a staggering 85mph.

Amenities were few, but my parents did pop for the bucket seats which, to this day, are still some of the most comfortable ones I've experienced. The radio was a single-speaker unit, which didn't do much to impress the ladies (or anyone else, for that matter).

I had to do something about the outside, so I took a cue from Porsche and went with the "black chrome" look they'd started in the '80s. I sanded down the rust on the chrome bumpers and painted them black, along with the peeling plastic chrome on the drip rails, and the shiny door handles. I also rattle-canned the 13" steel wheels back to silver. When I was done, the car actually looked remarkably good, and more than one passerby would stop and ask about it. I even caught a glance or two from the guy across the street with the custom Maxima.

The struts had long since worn out, so it skipped across uneven pavement. This, combined with the front wheel drive, made for entertaining cornering and, along with the 6k rpm redline, made you feel like you were always hauling ass. The muffler even fell off once, which made the car ridiculously loud (and "sporty", to my 17-year-old ears), but was soon replaced much to my chagrin.

But like my father, I learned to really enjoy this little car over the next few years. It looked like nothing else on the road, and even had a reverse-opening hood with functional louvers which gave it a sporting persona.

I was terribly upset one afternoon when the car finally died, and I hobbled it home and parked it. My father, who knew nothing about cars, was convinced that the engine was toast. Now that I know better, I think it was something like a fouled spark plug or a bad distributor. It only had 155k miles on it.

I can't imagine many of these cars still exist, but I'd love to have the opportunity to find another one and run it up the road again. I'll even be happy with metallic blue. Sorry, Dad.

Photos courtesty of oldparkedcars.com

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