Junkyards, gearheads, and rust: salvaging the automotive past

279 Pages·2016·8.759 MB·English

by  Lucsko, David N

Junkyards, Gearheads, and Rust
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Junkyards, Gearheads, and Rust
Salvaging the Automotive Past
David N. Lucsko
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS BALTIMORE
© 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2016
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
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Johns Hopkins University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in-P ublication Data
Lucsko, David N., 1976–
Junkyards, gearheads, and rust : salvaging the automotive past / David N. Lucsko.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4214-1942-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)— ISBN 1-4214-1942-4 (hardcover :
alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4214-1943-5 (electronic)— ISBN 1-4214-1943-2 (electronic)
1. Automobile graveyards— United States. 2. Automobiles—P arts— United States.
3. Automobile wrecking and used parts industry— United States— History. I. Title.
TD795.4.L83 2016
338.4'762920973— dc23 2015026986
A cata log record for this book is available from the British Library.
Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please
contact Special Sales at 410-5 16-6 936 or specialsales@press . jhu . edu .
Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, includ-
ing recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post- consumer waste,
whenever possible.
For Walter, and for Bob
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 The Automotive Salvage Business in America,
1900–2010: An Overview 14
2 Parts, Parts Cars, and Car Enthusiasts: The Art and Practice
of Direct Recycling 38
3 Arizona Gold: Enthusiast- Specialty Salvage Yards, 1920s–2000s 74
4 Junkyard Jamboree: Hunting for Trea sure in the Automotive
Past, 1950–2010 98
5 Not in My Neighbor’s Backyard, Either: Zoning and Eyesore
Ordinances, 1965–2010 133
6 Of Clunkers and Camaros: Policy Makers, Enthusiasts,
and Old- Car Scrappage, 1990–2009 159
Coda: Something Old, Something New 188
Notes 193
Essay on Sources 249
Index 255
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Preface
When I was four, I wanted one toy more than any other: Clyde’s Car
Crusher, a set that let you form small cars out of tinfoil using molds and
then smash them into little cubes with a miniature junkyard crusher. I
never got a Clyde’s set of my own, but when I was five, I got something even
better, at least to my mind. That year my family moved from one borough
in the Pittsburgh area to another, and from my bedroom window on the
front of our new h ouse I could clearly see, over the crest of a hill on the
horizon, the cranes and piles of cars at a salvage yard a couple of miles away.
Eigh teen months later we moved again, this time to a more idyllic town,
south of Atlanta. To my disappointment, all that could be seen on the ho-
rizon from my new window was an endless line of southern pines. But to
my delight, anytime we drove to the mall in the next county, or to down-
town Atlanta itself, I had plenty of opportunities to see derelict cars rust-
ing away in fields or lined up in roadside salvage yards.
I’m not quite sure why I found these sights so fascinating when I was a
kid. What I do know is that when I was a teenager, the salvage yards scat-
tered across the southern metro area became vitally important to me as
sources of odds and ends for my daily driver. Over the years I bought em-
blems, fenders, shift knobs, dashboard switches, and several speedome-
ters from the local yards. Sometimes I also visited them just to browse
around, poking and prodding at the wrecks as if they w ere department-
store goods and I a window shopper. On more than one occasion, I missed
my chance to rescue a vintage car, too; I’ll never forget the clean, rust- free,
white- on- white 1967 Westfalia camper that was inexplicably moldering
away in a yard on Highway 85 or the guilt I felt when I realized that I was in
no position to save it from its fate. Yes, once upon a time, I was a junkyard
junkie.
In the years since, my trips to salvage yards have grown fewer and far-
ther between. This is because the parts I tend to need for my older cars
simply don’t exist at most of them anymore; the wrecks that would have
had them once upon a time have now aged out of the system, having grown