You may have noticed this isn't the classic dead car page, and you're right. This is LTRlite, with half the calories and none of the aftertaste. How long will you have to suffer with it? Well, I'm working on it, but it might be a while since the last time anyone heard from my webmaster, he was seen hopping a freight near Kansas City with a furvitive look on his face and a small briefcase tucked under his arm. So keep the faith folks! I'll try to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, I've broken completely down and have a small Flickr account so I can at least put something here for the masses to enjoy till a more permanent solution comes round' the bend. Now, without further cheap explainations... I give you the following.
MAKE - Lincoln
MODEL - Town Car(s)
These were once luxury coupes. Now, they're just 5,000 pound paperweights that had a high initial purchase price. Considering how much dead steel is sitting here when you add up the Town Cars, those 2 abandoned flatbed semi trailers and all that other assorted junk, it's a wonder you can even approach this pile safely without first calling up someone at the Kennedy Space Center to check that your orbit trajectory looks good.
MAKE - Chevrolet
MODEL - K-Series
And another pickup fulfills it’s life mission to become a semi-mobile repository for shop waste.
MAKE - Ford
MODEL - LTD
"Ltd" is also short for "Limited". Fitting, seeing as this car's movement has certainly been limited to only one direction and one speed, straight down and very slowly. It must have spent some time in a garage somewhere until recently, as I refuse to believe that it sat outside for the last 38 years without getting a speck of corrosion on it. Alas, it's been thrown into the cold to fend for itself, and already nature is starting to stick to it like a parasite seeking to draw out any life it has left. The only good thing that can be said of it's impending rust-out is that it'll obliterate that hideous 70's powder-blue paintjob that is the ocular equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard.
MAKE - Buick
MODEL - Electra
Also known as the "Deuce and a Quarter" because it was powered by a 225 cubic inch engine. Though I'd just call it "Deuce" right now, as I'm willing to bet more than a quarter of it has rusted away under all of that. Also sneaking into the picture in the woods to your left is the rusty hull of what used to be maybe a Dodge Dart, or some midsized Mopar at any rate. Whatever it is, you can probably find it on Ebay right now for a modest "Buy it Now" price of $24,000 USD, because the "numbers match!" and it's "all original!"
MAKE - Packard
MODEL - Clipper
This is a 53' Packard, one of the last cars that manufacturer built before going out of business after an ill-fated merger with Studebaker. Turns out, when you take two struggling 50's car companies that are losing money, and put them together, all you get is one very large struggling 50's car company that loses a whole lot of money. The most interesting thing about this one isn't that it's sticking together fairly well, or where it was found. (Abandoned, in an abandoned junkyard, a metaphysical double-whammy, like getting sent to heck for a few minutes before you get sent to Hell itself) No, the intriguing thing to me is that hood ornament. Was that designed to purposely skewer pedestrians that couldn't get out of the crosswalk in time? Seriously! This car could have competed in Death Race 2000 right off the showroom floor. Only a Norden Bombsite would have been more conspicuous.
MAKE - Plymouth
MODEL - Volare
This thing is like a burrito, a hard and crusty wrapper stuffed full of a mishmash of fillings that nobody can identify, only guess at.
MAKE - Chevrolet
MODEL - C-Series
Someone clearly forgot to read that part of their owners manual that cleary states "Do Not Chew On This Vehicle". Or else it has a really bad case of cramps.
MAKE - Imperial
MODEL - LeBaron
It's a 74' or a 75', one of the last ones they built before the Imperial line of cars was axed and the Imperial name was relegated to a trim level on high-end Chryslers. Blame fuel scares, tighter emissions laws and the decline of the full size car in general for all of that. This thing probably got fuel mileage comprable to an M1 Abrams tank on a good day. Which is to say, it was measured in gallons per mile.
MAKE - MG
MODEL - Midget
MG’s are known for having temperamental reliability as is, they’re like lottery tickets, you never know what you’re going to get, you’re hoping for thrill and excitement, but you’re soon certain to feel disappointment the instant you so much as scratch the surface. The electrical systems are notoriously bad to the point you could cause a short out by simply carrying a damp sponge in the passenger’s seat. Yes, yes, before I go too far I must begrudgingly admit that’s part of the charm and quirkiness of the car that I can’t possibly ever appreciate. (To the British-Leyland fanboy in the back row, are you happy now? Promise no more hate mail? Good.) But apparently even that was too much mobility for this chap’s sake as he decided to go one better and plow into something. The missing windshield gives me an interesting mental image of what may have happened to said chap after he lost the ensuing game of chicken.
MAKE - Chevrolet
MODEL - Panel Van
Here’s another 50’s era indestructo-vehicle that’s somehow held together despite being an open target for vandals and the elements for the last 50 years. The fact that the worst that’s happened to it in that time frame is the grille got mashed in makes me wonder, were carmakers back then under some kind of governmental mandate that any car they built had to be drivable in a worst case scenario? Like even if hordes of Red Army pirate ninja zombies attacked during an all out nuclear war?
MAKE - Ford
MODEL - F-150
This used to be a pickup, once upon a few six packs ago. Now, it’s an interesting conversation piece the next time the neighbors decide to drop by for cocktails.
MAKE - Mack
MODEL - F-700
Optimus Prime! Nooooooooooooo! Oh, wait, it’s not him, whew! I was worried there for a moment. For sheer size of abandonment, nothing beats this. An entire tractor trailer rig and its trailer carefully parked and then forgotten about. Exactly how long ago was that? Well, to give you an idea, the trailer had markings on it for the Penn Central Railroad. And they went bankrupt in 1970….
MAKE - Chrysler
MODEL - New Yorker
A New Yorker huh? Wonder if it'll scream "Hey! Hey! I'm parkin' here!" if you try and tow it away?
MAKE - Chevrolet
MODEL - Cavalier
Here's another car who had an owner that was a big fan of the "Parking-by-Braille" method. He also apparently couldn't stand the thought of losing the precious $14 he spent on those windshield wipers when the car got chucked out.
MAKE - Chevrolet
MODEL - Malibu
*Warning, teary-eyed nostalga mode engaged*
With plastic fenders and foam bumpers being more or less the standard way to build a car now, accidents have kinda become dull affairs that sound like people tossing recycling bins full of plastic soda bottles around. I kinda miss the ol' days when a fender bender had a resounding crunch of twisted sheet metal and the kissing of steel bumpers that resulted in a piece of abstract art worthy of display in an office lobby. Why, back in my day, the whole darn town knew when you had wrecked, they could hear it from blocks away! Now, get off my lawn you no good kids! Or I'll hike my pants up even further than my armpits!
MAKE - Chrysler
MODEL - Newport
Pretty sharp and straight for being a forty-something, this 62’ actually hasn’t been abandoned for that long. The plates on it were good up until 2003. And they weren’t antique plates either, just your standard daily-driver car plates. Pretty amazing, considering how some people seem to have the knack for buying new cars, and then expending them at a speeds you'd normally associate with infant diapers, restaurant appetizers or 155mm howitzer shells during the Battle of the Bulge.
MAKE - Chevrolet
MODEL - Caprice
Not only is this car abandoned, it seems to have drug it's own garage along with it. And both seem to have lost just as many pieces of glass.
MAKE - Mercury
MODEL - Comet
And much like it's namesake, this car looks as if it plummeted out of the night sky and landed in a heap of a crater right here. I don't think there's a single contour that still lines up with where it originaly was when it left the factory.
MAKE - Ford
MODEL - F-150
It’s slim pickins’ in the back of this junker. Only a few sandbox toys and the remains of some kind of bathroom fixture. That’s an unlikely combination isn’t it? According to the inspection stickers, it’s only been off the road for maybe a year or two, so there’s plenty of time left for it to collect more kiddie shovels or the rest of the house plumbing back there before it gets flatbedded to the smelter.
MAKE - Ford
MODEL - Bronco
Don’t see too many of these old-school 4x4’s around anymore. I guess the market for vehicles for disgraced ex-football stars to make low-speed escapes in after allegedly knifing two innocent people to death has been reluctantly seceded to the SUV, or the Crossover or whatever they’re calling a car on a truck frame these days. This one isn’t in too bad of a shape, but it’s been hemmed in on all sides by an assortment of industrial machinery and discarded big rigs that are preventing its escape. It’s only a matter of time before the perpetual aura of shabbiness that surrounds it will cause it to fall apart by peer pressure alone. I’ve seen it happen you know, I’m not a crackpot!
MAKE - AMC
MODEL - Javelin
Nope, it’s not a mustang with swollen front fenders, it’s a car you may not have known about. American Motors (AMC) used to be the perpetual 4th place finisher in the domestic car market, back when there were actually 4 competitors and not the “Big Three”. As such, they were the first to have to throw in the towel and get out of the muscle car market in the early 70’s, making their performance cars like the Javelin, the AMX and the SC/Rambler something of a rarity to find today. Instead, they’re better known for some of the bizarre car models they made while on their downward spiral out of business at the dawn of the 1980’s. Like the Pacer of Wayne’s World fame, or the Gremlin. (You named a car after a mythical creature that destroys machinery? What in the name of puking-in-a-biscuit-pan were you thinking???). By 1983, the company was defunct after a short-lived merger with Renault, and was absorbed into Chrysler, who inherited the only car line from that company that survives today, Jeep.
MAKE - Toyota
MODEL - Pickup
I'm just dying to park this someplace blatantly illegal, like a handicapped space, or a fire lane, or a spot for handicapped firefighters, and then watch the meter maid have a fit when she can't figure out what to put on the ticket under "vehicle color".
MAKE - Mercedes-Benz
MODEL - 240D
Attention all units, be on the lookout for a tan late-model Mercedes 240D, last seen driving south on Highway 322. Vehicle has been reported as abandoned and is no longer allowed on the road. Occupants are 2 tractor tires described as elderly and balding. If seen, detain immediately and don't buy any lame excuses that you pulled them over just because they were black.
MAKE - Chevrolet
MODEL - K-Series
According to the inspection stickers, this truck was on the road until 2 years ago, and in that short time it's managed to lose 2 headlights and collect the first of what will probably be many junk car parts. Not bad kid, you've got a future in this biz.
MAKE - Chevrolet
MODEL - S10
Another junk truck, another bed full of debris, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it used to be, it's the remains of some kind of carpentry project, if you can figure it out, e-mail me. I also can't tell if this thing was grey originally or if it was primered to hell and back in a futile attempt to stop the smallpox-like spread of corrosion.
MAKE - Ford
MODEL - Probe
Must be another NASA-built probe, as like the last 2 or 3 that were sent off, this one ended up off course and in the bush.
That's it, there's no more, I'm working on it
Yes, I know, I'm working on it....
I SAID I WAS WORKING ON IT! GOSH YOU FOLKS ARE PUSHY!