Ever since I was a little kid, I have been a sucker for junkyards. I can get lost in time looking through piles of junked cars, having fun just trying to identify them all. So when I was working on an upcoming post and can across this cover shot from the May 1968 issue of Road Test Magazine, I stopped in my tracks and worked to figure out as many of them as possible. Now it’s your turn: what are all the makes, years, and–if you’re really on your game–models can you identify in this huge pile of junk?
Road Test even gave a little blurb on its Table of Contents page describing the challenges of snapping the picture–replete with the threat of junkyard dogs and the scorn of grumpy yard caretakers. “Keep away” was the modus operandi, and why not? For most people, old cars were nothing more than unwanted junk that rapidly piled up.
Back in the day, huge stacks of scrapped cars were seemingly more common than today. Scrap metal operators of yesteryear just stacked ’em high and then figured out what to do next, while today’s “salvage and recycling centers” nimbly extract anything of value as fast as they can, then crush, shred and ship the bits to China. No nostalgia, no piles of yesterday’s dreams just waiting to be ogled by car fanatics. But thanks to Road Test, we have this picture!
So have at it! Here’s a tighter cropped closeup of the junked cars, and I also tried to enhance the clarity. Enlarge it and see how many cars you can make out.
In addition to the array of 1950’s iron, a few other things spring to mind for me regarding this shot. A big one is the relative newness of the junked cars. Most of them seemed to be under 15 years old when the picture was taken, with quite a few that were just 10 to 12 years old in 1968.
Some statistics help define the magnitude of the change compared with today. Here’s a chart that shows the age of cars scrapped, as compiled by Antonio Bento, Kevin Roth, and Yiou Zuo at UC Irvine (ironically not too far from where Road Test‘s Orange County offices were located and the Southern California site where this huge scrapyard used to exist). The percentages indicate the number of cars by age that were scrapped annually, and the contrast can be seen between the late 1960s and 1970s versus the late 1980s through 2014.
| Vehicle Age (Years) | % Scrapped 1969-1979 | % Scrapped 1987-2014 |
| 5 | 3% | 2% |
| 6 | 4% | 2% |
| 7 | 5% | 3% |
| 8 | 7% | 3% |
| 9 | 9% | 4% |
| 10 | 12% | 6% |
| 11 | 14% | 7% |
| 12 | 16% | 9% |
| 13 | 17% | 11% |
| 14 | 18% | 13% |
Cars between 6 and 12 years old were much more likely to be junked back in the day. WardsAuto data relays a similar finding: the average age of cars on the American road was 5.6 years old in 1970 versus 11.6 years old in 2016. Of course, significant advances in technology, quality, reliability, rust protection and safety have contributed mightily to the longer lifespan for today’s cars.
But there’s another major issue at play: style. In 1968, Detroit’s strategy of planned obsolescence was still working brilliantly! Cars were still idolized as fashion statements, and for many American car buyers, that meant frequent change plus adhering to the motto: “out with the old and in with the new.” This was especially true for status conscious buyers–yesterday’s upmarket darling was soon a dated dud. Witness the abundance of Oldsmobiles in that stack of SoCal junk, including a very obvious 1958 model. The average upwardly mobile American driver in 1968 would have felt utterly stigmatized for driving a 10-year-old car since it would have seemed embarrassingly old and obsolete.
1958’s rocket age “Oldsmobility” was shockingly unfashionable in the late 1960s, just as this 1968 Ninety-Eight would have felt like a relic ten years later, even if it wasn’t as absurdly dated as the Detroit extravagances from the late 1950s had seemed 10 years after they were built. For upwardly mobile customers in the 1960s and 1970s, a late model Olds was a must, while a 10-year-old one was a bust.
Today, however, the automotive world is quite different. And 10 years barely make one whit of difference. Witness the following 2008 and 2018 editions of a currently fashionable upmarket car:
Many folks no longer care passionately about having the “latest and greatest” new vehicles because most people can’t really even tell which is which. Dated styling, tired mechanicals or corrosion won’t send these to the junkyard–rather it will be glitchy electronics, dead screens and un-updatable software that will kill them.
However, there is one thing I can say for certain: 50 years from now, there won’t be the same entertainment in examining a huge junk pile (if such a thing were even to exist) of 2000’s-era silver/gray/black/white aero-blob sedans and CUVs as we can enjoy from scrutinizing this heap of discarded 50’s dreams. So see how many you can ID, and happy hunting!
That little Pontiac toward the left bothers me. That’s a nice little specimen, a Le Mans, it looks like, and I’m going ’63 or ’64. Me like. Someone else didn’t.
The owner was probably tired of riding around in a paint shaker and found that it had little or no trade-in value.
The other reason cars”last” so much longer today is so do the payments! When I was a kid 36 months was the norm and a 60 month payment plan had people commenting on your financial and mental well being. Now, 72, 84 and 96 month plans are becoming the norm.
You can’t scrap it til you’re done paying for it!
Build quality has improved dramatically since the 50s 60s and 70s components seem to be more reliable, I recently updated my ride from a now 20 year old French car (which incidentally still runs fine I was driving it today it will be my teen daughters first car) to a 15 year old French car and its electronic systems still work as they should including the computer controlled suspension, the motor goes great gearbox has no odd noises and shifts properly (its manual) the body is galvanised so rust isnt a problem, it was just designed and built properly and maintained reasonably well since new, my other car a British relic from the late 50s goes well but has been rebuilt and mechanically upgraded for modern traffic but is still reliable it starts when I want it to even though the electrical system is from the Lucas store, my old Citroen has a Lucas injector pump which still works ok so those people who consider Joe Lucas products to be rubbish might want to think again.
I say we have the Japanese for the overall industry improvements. The quality they brought to the game pretty much forced Detroit to try and match them. Took Detroit a while but I think they are now equal mostly to to Japanese offerings.
I’ll take the 60 Ford wagon sitting up top(ish – dang cheb long roof).
That one caught my attention too, but wow, only eight years old and fodder already!
My family had a 1960 Ford Country Sedan, Belmont Blue (a medium metallic blue) with a blue cloth interior and what I remember about that car was how wide it was….on the outside. The 58 Chevy Brookwood it replaced fit in our early 50s garage just fine, the 60 Ford barely squeezed into that garage. Getting into or out of that car while it was still in the garage was next to impossible.
BTW, my Mom hated that Chevy, and forbid my Dad from ever buying another Chevy, but liked the Ford.
“Many folks no longer care passionately about having the “latest and greatest” new vehicles because most people can’t really even tell which is which”. Truer words were never spoken, they all look alike and i find that to be so pathetic. there are some stand outs like cadillac and buick and lincoln(to be honest as much as i love Cadillacs….i’ve grown tired of the arts and science look) theres plenti of performance now…………but no distinction in vehicles,i can honestly mistake A Honda accord for a BMW. 20 years ago that would have been cool, but now just pathetic.
True, they all look the same now. I used to get excited about the annual auto show. Today, the buzz is gone.
Auto makers are held to a higher standard than in the past. Therefore, the money goes to what’s under the hood versus what’s wrapped around the frame.
You’re right about the electronics; product turnover in this biz is incredible. They’re not the sort of a thing an amateur can easily repair or rebuild in his shop. And of course, vendors have no incentive to retain or support old parts.
It is the supposedly “high-tech” defense industry that often gets left behind in this hyperactive technological rat-race. Parts and software obsolescence is a continuing headache for mature systems.
It is already happening. If you check Miata forums, there is a problem with the circuit board capacitors in the ECU exploding on the original NA series cars and they are no longer produced. The only choice is a junkyard replacement that may fail as well, or having someone skilled in soldering electronics repairing the damaged one. Without a functioning ECU, the cars are scrap. I am sure it is happening in other cars, but I know of this via a robust community forum for the Miata.
This sounds like as much an issue of what business types call “silos” as anything else. Electronics hardware repair is rarer than it needs to be, and certainly the auto repair “silo” isn’t as tuned in to it as it should be.
No it is not a problem Companies like Cardone have been offering “remanufactured” ECU for decades now. Here is the one for the 90-93 Miata. https://www.partsgeek.com/gbproducts/DC/8532-05254327.html?utm_content=DN&utm_term=1990-1993+Mazda+Miata+Electronic+Control+Unit+A1+Cardone+72-7064+90-93+Mazda+Electronic+Control+Unit+1991+1992&fp=pp&gbm=a&utm_source=google&utm_medium=ff&utm_campaign=PartsGeek+Google+Base&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2vehybGZ2QIVSU1-Ch1AuQQmEAQYASABEgLLIfD_BwE&ad=47433967812
For those that don’t have sufficient core supplies they offer an R&R service for your unit in most cases.
Plus you have the small companies that specialize is a single or small range of products. For example you have the people who do just GM instrument clusters, either kits for you do it yourself or who will repair yours. https://www.ebay.com/b/Car-Truck-Instrument-Clusters/33675/bn_584045
The Miata is popular enough and is a bit of a modern classic now, so I can imagine its going to have pretty decent aftermarket support. What about cars that aren’t going to have that kind of support? How long would you be able to keep a car like a Mazda 323 on the road before it needs some part that’s unobtainium?
Failing capacitors is nothing new to those in the electronics field. It was a problem endemic to ALL electronics from the early 1990’s, due to an incomplete formula for the electrolyte in the capacitors in a case of fumbled corporate espionage. The failing formula made its way throughout the industry though in a strange fluke. Computer motherboard users were the first niche I heard where this was happening, as quickly as 1996 or so. They’d leak all over the motherboard and render the traces corroding if not caught in time. In extreme cases, the capacitors bulge and eventually short, creating the explosion that often takes out fragile semiconductors with its voltage jolt. Even in modern times, leaky, bulging, failing, and exploding capacitors are STILL a problem that takes out many an LCD TV. Youtube is filled with how-to videos for them.
Just yesterday I saw a ’92-4 Civic sedan in good shape and thought that it doesn’t look as dated as you’d think a 25(!)-year-old car would. Low, yes, and grille-less in a way that only caught on for a few years, but still…it takes a 1980s car or at least an ’80s design to really look like an old car now. A coworker has a Cutlass Ciera wagon, a ’96 model but only mildly tweaked since the wagon’s ’84 debut and it really stands out in a 2018 parking lot – again, the impression is of lowness and a certain lightness lent by all that non-dark-tinted glass area.
The rise of longer payments certainly contributes but is countered by the prevalence of leasing, particularly in the segment Audi plays in where the Oldsmobiles once roamed.
About halfway up the center stack is a 1958 Olds 88 (also shown in a close up in the article). My grandfather’s rich brother came to visit him in (1960?) and I thought that it was the most amazing car I had ever seen as a little kid. Perhaps the effect was amplified though since my dad -ever the automotive rebel- was driving a 1959 SAAB in those days. If there was ever an anti-Oldsmobile that SAAB was it.
Oh – something that struck me. The caption for the lede photo says that the junkyard was “off the San Diego freeway”, meaning that as California cars none of them in that stack are there because of rust.
They are there because of accidents or plain old high miles. The SoCal lifestyle and spread-out nature of the place necessarily piled on the miles.
Lots of late fifties models here, which would make them around 10 years old when scrapped. Makes me laugh when I hear some ignoramous lament “they don’t build them like they used to”. Yep, they sure don’t.
Think the newest one here is the 1960 Ford Wagon at the top.
That red bullet nose Studebaker at the top of the pile may be one of the oldest there. My choice would be the gray 56 New Yorker hardtop in the middle of the pile (atop the 2 door 49-ish Plymouth wagon).
Just look at the progression of the gap between a 20 year old car and a new one. 1920-1940 was huge, as was 1940-1960. But 1960-1980 was much less of one and 1980-2000 was less yet. We are just about to be able to compare 2000-2020 – does anyone see much difference there?
In addition to unfixable electronics, I think that the big cause of scrappage going forward will be failed automatic transmissions. The days of a $1k replacement are long gone with all of these modern 8+ speed automatics. I don’t care how nice your $2k old car is, when you get a $4k bill to replace a transmission the car will be gone.
Plus, airbags!!!! It just occurred to me that most cars in accidents are usually totalled if the airbags deployed. It is not because of the other collision damage, but the cost to replace the airbags usually is more than 50% of the value of the car, thus the insurance company totals the car. There are dealers all over who buy and sell the totalled cars and presumably dismantle them for parts or recycling. We see these cars being trailered on new car haulers all the time, and there is a facility that deals with them nearby to me. They seldom go to pick and pulls or true scrap yards as pictured, as those places seem to have gone by the wayside.
It is not just the cost of air bags that totals them it is the cost of air bags and the associated pieces on top of the rest of the damage that totals them.
The vast majority of insurance totals are sold through companies such as Copart and Insurance Auto Auctions. From there some are bought be people who rebuild insurance totals for profit either in the US or abroad. The newer cars go to the wrecking yards that specialize in “late model salvage” and do a lot of wholesale business with repair shops, either body or mechanical.
The self service lots mainly deal in cars that they can buy for the value of the metal and anything they get from selling a part or two is a bonus.
The big scrap yards that pile the flattened hulks a mile high still exist, they are just usually located port side now.
Schnitzer Steel is one of the biggest, they own the Pick-n-Pull self serve wrecking yards mainly as a source to fulfill their metal contracts. However the also buy the flattened cars from any wrecking yard that brings them in. Because they shred them right into the boats they sometimes end up with large stacks pf cars and other metal products while they wait for the next boat to dock.
People are still trying to “keep up with the Joneses – or the Kardashians” but instead of doing it with cars they are more interested these days in latest iphone or whatever mobile bling. Cars are just appliances to them now.
That white one in the center of the first pic just above mid-point looks like a ’57 Lincoln Premiere.
I had my eye on that one too. It looks to be a convertible. Rare then, and more so now.
Cars are lasting longer now, because they have to.
Before the advent of Lemon Laws, if you got a “bum” car, you were pretty much stuck with it until you could (afford to) dump it on another unsuspecting sucker.
Just as importantly, tightening car emissions regulations required that the car be in compliance not just at time of purchase, but for 50,000 miles…and I think it may be 100,000 miles now
Finally, cars are built stronger, because of federal government regulations.
Because of the possibility of a “bad” transmission prematurely “killing” a car, I almost always look for a car or truck with a manual transmission, something that is getting more difficult.
I keep hearing that the 07-17 Compass Manual Transmission is not as robust as the CVT, but that could just be rumors.
Don’t forget improvements in rustproofing. It used to be common in the rust belt for cars a few years old to have big holes in the floors and fenders.
I find that to be such an intriguing photo! Yep, that’s where 99.75% of them went–I happen to own three that escaped that fate.
I’m actually old enough to remember scenes like this with cars of this vintage. It was actually kind of scary when you’re a little kid, going through Newark by train and seeing these stacks of dead monsters, with their angry grilles and shark fins. G.I. Auto Salvage on Rt. 46 in Pine Brook NJ was another journey through the underworld. At the time I thought, “How could man destroy the environment like this, and create such ugliness?” Today, of course, such vintage piles are extinct, and they take on the barbaric “beauty” of an archeological ruin.
Here’s a shot I took of G.I. in 1989:
Awww – There’s a peanut Volvo in there.
Because of my age, I can identify practically every car in the pile, LOL!! 🙂 I often see trucks loaded with crushed cars headed for the receycling center that still have LOTS of usable parts on them, but, alas! It seems to be cheaper to crush them, rather than part them out.
Thank you for sharing this photograph which I enjoyed looking through and the comments which are a nice to read.
Unlike where I grew up cars last a lot longer in Oregon and the 20th Century vehicle is still decently present depending on where you go on this state. I myself have a 1993 Camry (manual) and it does not look too different from some newer cars until you see the interior.
I had a 2007 Audi A3 and when I sold it in 2014 it still looked like a new one. I liked that.
So many dreamboats (as these cars were called in “Insolent Chariots”) in a pile. 10-20 years old cars certainly don’t look so out of place in modern traffic, especially in 2nd world countries.
“So many dreamboats…” That was my reaction too. What was once so shiny and new and futuristic (and lovingly cared for) now reduced to this. The cars that came later weren’t nearly so special. So sad.
Looks like the ass end of a ’60 Ford wagon near the top of the pile. A mere 8 yrs old at the time. Car years were akin to dog years back then.
Oh I don’t know about the “they don’t build them like they do” sarcasm. At the far lower right there is a orange 56 Buick that, other than a squished roof, appears to be holding up a pretty impressive load with no issues. In fact, two cars below that, there is yet another 56 Buick ( a four hole vent-a- port ) holding THAT up.
Our family bought a 56 new that ran until the mid 70’s and well over 100,000 miles. It never did die but was “killed” in an accident that left the driver OK but finally did in the old girl.
Those cars were simple to operate and fix, no electronics to break, and were made out of sheet metal that could find a home on a tank.
If these were so good, then why are they here. It’s great that your family received great service from your 1956, but truthfully most ’50’s cars never came close to seeing 100K miles and were quite tired after 5 years. And as for “sheet metal that could find a home on a tank”, take a look at that IIHS video of the ’59 Chevy Belair that was crashed into a new Malibu. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in that Belair. The specialty alloy steels used in modern cars are not only virtually rust free, but designed to be an integral part of the vehicles’ crashwothiness.
Same reason why your old iPhone 4 is in an electronic scrap pile in Somalia, because you just had to have a newer one…
The better steel today is a function of their coatings, and the crashworthiness is a function of better structure and crumple zones in right areas. Old cars had thicker stronger steel, which means crash worthiness is luck of the draw, the steel would buckle wherever the least amount of reenforcement was, and in instances were so solid that all the energy simply was transmitted to the occupants. Deadly, sure, but on the plus side these cars could take hail without getting pockmarked, and these cars were so rock simple that anyone could keep them running and driving indefinitely with simple tools as long as they aren’t concerned with being fashionable.
The problem I have always had with the infamous 59 Chevy video is it is not sweepingly representitave of all old cars, but every time it gets dragged into conversation that’s exactly the context. What we have in the way cars are constructed today is technological Darwinism, crash research showed the winners and losers and there were safer cars that provided a jumping off point for engineers to improve further. The X frame was one of those losers.
Not many of the cars in the pile are wrecked btw, mechanically worn out, fashionably objectionable, sure, but not everyone was killed in one.
Well, I must admit that upgraded my perfectly good flip phone a few years back to an iPhone, because of all the features and technology packed into it. The old flip simply wasn’t as good. Just like my beloved, old ’73 Cougar XR-7 (first new car) isn’t as good as my current Acura. There are always a few exceptions of course, but new products are better than old, a prime reason the age of cars on the road has doubled since 1970.
That bright orange Buick was the first thing I noticed. I know that 50s cars had more colors than today’s, but was that a factory color?
Is it weird that I want to climb it? 😀
These tall car piles are are awesome to me, and I mean awesome as in they inspire awe. I’ve never seen one, and I’m a junkyard rat, I knew they existed from pieces like this and even recall them featured in old cartoons, but I don’t even know if it’s practiced anymore. How did they get cars up that high? How many rows back did the piles extend back?
I climbed on them as a young teen. Sometimes they move or rock when you get on them. It wasn’t a smart thing to do but I used to scavenge emblems and I thought I was immortal.
When new every one of these cars probably brought a lot of joy and excitement to the family that bought them. Lots of pride too.
I know our family every time a new car came home. (A rare occurrence for us. As a small boy I wanted Dad to buy something new every year. Of course he was responsible enough to not even think about that.)
No telling what the feelings were when the car was sold or traded. My guess is that most people were excited by getting a new car and were ready to be rid of the old one.
Planned obsolescence was a huge driver of the economy then and it still is in a lot of sectors.
We were definitely the outliers in our Pittsburgh suburb when it came time to change cars. We kept each Chevy for about six years, rather than the two or three that was typical for most of our neighbors. Then again, our cars averaged only about 5,000 miles per year, so they only had 30K miles when they were replaced!
When I visit my mother who still lives in the same house I grew up in, I can see why the miles were so low — everything needed is within a mile or two, downtown Pittsburgh is only 5 miles away, and longer distance vacations were something we took only every 3 or so years.
I don’t recall anything being seriously wrong with the cars at 30K miles; the thinking was that they were getting old enough that some serious repairs could be around the corner.
And none of those new-fangled car loans for our family; all purchases were strictly in cash!
I would venture that there’s a good number of shiny, galvanized 10 year old Audis in the scrapyard, given their horrendous unreliability, steep depreciation and cost of repairs that second and third owners can’t handle.
The pile looks a lot newer than the junkyards I wandered around in 1968. Except for the single body panel in the upper right corner which might be from the 30s, there’s nothing before 1949 in the pile. Most junkyards were heavy on ’40s cars.
Another factor besides style, were the rapid advances in comfort, convenience and safety. A/C was a very rare option on 1950s and early 60s cars, but by the late 60s was very common on full-size American cars and I can imagine a lot of S. California types wanting to get rid of the old (10 year old) heap to get something literally “cool”. To a lesser degree the same was true for power steering and brakes and even radios and automatic transmissions, and for the small but growing group concerned about safety, the lack of seatbelts and padded dashboards on 1950s-early 60s cars had to be a major reason to replace the old heap.
As for build quality – those 1950s cars were awesome – door gaps, paint finish, etc. were excellent and far superior to 1968 era cars, but low quality oil and grease, heavily leaded gasoline, and relatively low-tech metallurgy, plastics, and rubber caused rapid wear of mechanical components even if the frequent maintenance schedules of the time were kept. Even if rust wasn’t an issue (as in SW USA), cars were worn out or in need of major repairs by 50-75,000 miles, which was a major improvement from the pre-war era when a Model T was worn out by 25,000 miles. So in a sense, it is amazing that there are as many survivors around today as there are.
As for build quality – those 1950s cars were awesome – door gaps, paint finish, etc. were excellent and far superior to 1968 era cars,
Tell that to the buyers of ’57 Chrysler Corp cars and ’57 Fords. Build quality on both were atrocious. And there were other stinkers too. And there were plenty of well-made cars in the 60s. I’d hold a ’68 Oldsmobile up to any of the 50s cars in terms of build quality. And that’s just one example.
i’ll take the green 55 ford wagon for work ,and the 59 dodge custom royal
convertible for play yah hoo!
I notice an apparent lack of 55-57 Chevies in the picture. One possibly a 55 or 56 near the top with a crushed roof. Any late 50-early 60 street scene photo will have at least two. The Chevies were still a hot item in the used car and enthusiast market by 1968. Maybe Chevies weren’t being scrapped as readily as Olds and Buicks. The sedans and wagons were likely being individually parted out to keep a coupe or post race car in spare parts.
Not a single foreigner on that pile.
Nope…they were piled up in foreign junkyards as very few imports existed in the US in ’68. I’m sure there were plenty of 50’s imports piled in their own junkyards.
look,when I was a senior in high school in 1972 you could drive your 55 chevy through
the drive in restaurant you were cool everbody liked tri five chevies you also had to
pay through the nose for a used one damn early mustang was the same way