It’s been a while since we caught up with the junkyard visits that canadiancatgreen uploads at the Cohort. With his finds being quite plentiful, for today I decided to highlight mostly American/Canadian iron from the ’70s-’80s era. To begin the proceedings, this Ford LTD. Why first? Mostly because there’s a nice shot of the interior as well.
There it is! If you’re fed up with the everpresent gray and black plastics of today’s interiors, this nice shade of green (in every corner and crevice!) should provide some respite.
Let’s move on to GM. Here’s a perennial favorite, a B-body Caprice. Kind of like Hotel California or Stairway to Heaven, a bit overplayed and ubiquitous. But still, a nice and cohesive design that I never truly get tired of seeing, rust warts and all.
Don’t worry, I’m not leaving Mopar fans aside in this post. Here’s what was uploaded as an ’86 Plymouth Caravelle, a Canadian Chrysler model. Of course, I knew this shape as a Dodge Diplomat, and most of the ones I saw in my California days were fleet units. Regardless of badge, quite a memory.
Let’s jump to something slightly different with this early ’80s Oldsmobile Toronado.
And sticking to Olds, here’s a ’84 Cutlass Supreme, in that burgundy I remember so well from the 1980s.
Let’s jump to a true Canadian offering with this ’81 Pontiac Parisienne, a few years before the moniker made its way to the US.
A 1980s Monte Carlo. Or what’s left of it, anyway.
The snow in this shot is a sign that this 1970s Dodge Charger is one of the most recent uploads.
Back to Dearborn products with this ’78 Lincoln, with what looks like one too many spares in the trunk. And with this, I’ll close this brief excursion into Canadian junkyards, where vintage iron from the Big Three never seems to disappear.
When seeing such in ” Automotive recycling centers” , I think of the days they were new, the pride and joy sitting in the driveway, carport, or garage, and wht memories may have been made in the time between then and now.
My thought too.
The interior on that LTD is minty fresh. I wonder if you could option one like an Andes mint, chocolate brown paint with green interior. White/antique white/that buttery light yellow color with that mint interior would be pretty sweet as well.
The Toronado isn’t RWD. Just sayin’…
Right you are. The headline has been revised.
Technically speaking the Toronado is FWD.
I always have simultaneous joy and sorrow seeing old iron in a modern junkyard, on one hand it’s a car show where I can touch the classics all I want, and often they have parts I can pull and resell on fleabay or marketplace to make a few extra bucks. But it’s always a sorry sight to see a car that inexplicably outlived all its peers only to end up in the very late model junkyard it could have been in 20-30 years ago if not for the sentimental owner who likely left this mortal coil themselves recently to allow such a thing.
The 77 Charger is one of my guilty pleasure cars, it’s so wrong I kind of like it
“The 77 Charger is one of my guilty pleasure cars, it’s so wrong I kind of like it”
I’m right there with you! Although if a Magnum came along, I might swap.
I’m totally with you as far as the joy and sorrow thing goes.
Along with Jason W. I too think about when these cards were new and fresh. It was most likely a pretty big deal for many folks!
Until my dad explained, I never knew of a cars life cycle.
He and I were rolling along in his recently purchased 1974 Lincoln Mark IV, most likely his all time favorite car.
It was decked out in a moon dust copper/tan with a tan roof and insides. Anyway, as we were driving along, he explained that this car “will probably end up as someone’s beater with a heater, then off to the crusher where it will be recycled.”
Wait, what? They don’t stay new? Not every subsequent owner garbage keep this car? No washes?
Well, turns out he was very correct.
Today, I own a 1976 Mark. A gift from a friend, it was her mom’s last car. Sure it’s rusty. But with 89526 miles on it, it is garage kept! And driven weekly , at 9 mpg!!
Great photos!
Yes, it all depends on the owner. Most cars end up in the hands of people who seem them as simply an appliance that you get rid of once the newness has worn off. Not to mention care deferred. As for me, once a car has made it into my possession it has it made for life. Meaning my life and not the cars.
Those LTD Crown Vic’s were really nice and reliable cars for many years in the 1980s through the early 21st century. I hated to see them go.
What a great post. Perfect choice of photos. A boneyard is about as good as an auto museum in its peculiar way of seeing the art of cars in a deconstructed fashion.
When I worked for Budget Corporate in the Loop, we couldn’t get enough of these Panthers. Got top dollar and rented them out as soon as they returned. We had difficulties fulfilling demands across the US for them as renters would keep them longer than they were scheduled to have them. We had contracts with the concierge at luxury hotels that included having one on the hotel property as loaners. When the new Panthers arrived in 1990-1991, we kept hearing from the concierge how much they wanted to keep the 1989-1990 Lincolns, Ford and Mercurys.
They were reliable as stink but no fun to drive if you cared at all about road feel and modern technologies. Soft pillowy polyester velour interiors that made you sweat during the summer until the a/c kicked in. Thick pile carpeting that never really seemed clean. An instrument panel that was as informative as a Quiji Board, until a red light flashed. Cigarette ashtrays all around.
One day, after spending the day with a brand new less-than-100 miles on the odometer Town Car at a Hole-In-One event at Iron Oaks in Olympia Fields, I got flat-out rear ended by a Delta 88, driven by a Tri-State toll booth attendant who was too busy dumping a load of empty Portillos containers onto the Tri-State. Dude was flying and didn’t see how I had stopped for the slow-down.
I braced myself with both feet on the brakes and that Town Car absorbed the engine bay of that Delta as it submarined under me. Inside, it felt like someone dropped a steamer trunk onto the deck lid. After a couple of waving bounces, the dome light diffuser lens fluttered down next to me in the front seat, the transmission shift indicator cracked over from D to 2, and that was it. The Oldsmobile was gone from front bumper to mid-hood and the last of the Portillo trash plopped out of the driver’s window.
The genius in the Delta had a nose bleed and after about five minutes, the Minutemen arrived to shove him onto the shoulder. I drove the Town Car back to my place and filed an accident report. I kept the car until Monday. The tail lights still worked, but the squared off rear end of that Panther TC was concaved. It was a beautiful car totaled by a litterer. Delta Dude’s insurance had to cough up $51,341.00. He was littering his own tollway and driving into stopped traffic. Genius.
Sadly, these cars are disappearing. They were good cars.
VanillaDude: What a great story. Well, not that you got hit, but just the visuals of it all right down to the Portillos that I also know well.
Agree 100% with Jason W and Chip. I end up with a mixed bag of emotions when I see stuff like this. On one hand, I’m glad that those are available for others to find the parts they may need. Kind of like an organ donor, you don’t want anyone to die but are glad they decided to help others live.
On the other hand, it really saddens me to see such nice cars that I grew up with and love to be in such a place. Yet I will say that walking through places like this really gets the mind thinking and great memories flowing.
LIke many of us here, I remember when all these were new cars. Not that I ever saw them in Australia, but I saw pictures in magazines.
Doesn’t that Cutlass look weird with the tail lights and surrounds missing, the rear bumper upper sticking its tongue out at you? I’m stunned at all the vertical rust on the Caprice’s side panels.
That LTD though – looks like you could just give it a wash and drive off in it.
I’m surprised that the Cutlass still has the wire covers. I’d think they would be some of the first things to go! Easy off and easy to sell.
I am also old enough to remember when these cars were new, the pride of their first owners.
Hopefully some of the parts can be used to restore other autos.
-That green paint/interior marks the Crown Vic as one of the earlier versions of that generation. That green interior was in the very first one of these I ever drove in probably late fall or mid winter of 1978-79.
I too like looking at oldies but it kills me when I see a clean unrusted one that’s clearly been garage kept and the relatives flat don’t want Granpa’s / Granma’s old Road Yacht .
On the other hand several of these ave been well stripped so that’s a good sign .
-Nate
What’s a “Portillo”? Do you smoke ’em or eat ’em?
I didn’t know either, but Google is your friend:
“Portillo’s Restaurant Group, Inc. is an American fast casual restaurant chain based in the Chicago area that specializes in serving Chicago-style food such as hot dogs, Maxwell Street Polish, and Italian beef.” [source — Wikipedia]
For some reason I’m unable to open the reply button,
But @VanillaDude-my wife and I were married in 1984 and went to Fort Myers for our honeymoon.
Budget was the place to rent a car of every kind!
They had what seems like 100’s of Chrysler Fifth Avenue’s and man they were running deals. So we started out in a brand new, 250 mile blue 5th.
Before long, it started buckling and getting hard to start.
I made a phone call and they said that if it ran, they would happily replace it. And if it needed towed, well they would do that.
So we made it in, where they were delivering another three truck loads of Fifth Avenue’s !!
The lady apologized, and one of the lot men explained that everyone of those needed carburetor adjustments made.
I asked for a Town Car. She asked what color, and thinking she was kidding asked for black!! She delivered to the front door a black TC
I must say that the way I was treated has been remembered and I’ve rented from Budget several more times.
I was one of Budget’s national auditors, so I can confirm the quality managent at our Ft.Meyers location at that time. Florida and Hawaii gave us 40% of our profits, so I practically lived in those states. Florida has so much business now that oft-times I would land in Orlando and get a new Lincoln to get everywhere from Tampa Bay to Indiatlantic, South to Naples. I flew to Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville, but drove to all the other Budget locations. Since then, Budget Corp relocated from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale to escape taxes and now operates there.
Portillos is Italian roast beef served on a hard roll that was submerged in the au jus, then served with either sweet or hot peppers. Also Chicago dogs, hot dogs on poppy seed St. Rosen’s buns, dragged through the garden with mustard, onions green sweet relish, tomato wedges, sport peppers and celery salt. Afterwards, you have a chocolate milk shake that has a slice of their frosted chocolate cake blended through it. We love Portillos and my 87 year old mom still gets a full order weekly.
No ketchup goes on a hot dog.- blasphemy!
Vanilla Dude wrote:
“No ketchup goes on a hot dog.- blasphemy!”
What religion proclaims this nonsense? By the way Vanilla you’re hardly the first of heard say it.
People can put what they want on whatever, eat their pizza slice with fork and knife, and take their shoes off on the plane, as long as their feet stay on the floor in front of them, or under the seat in front of them if they recline.
After a rough start in 1979, the Green LTD makes it apparent how full-size Ford details and materials improved during the 1980s, while the the GM cars either atrophied, or actually lost ground over their 1977 iterations. And the drivetrains certainly became more desirable than those in most GM products.
GM lost me in the early ’80 and I have been mostly a Ford man since, except for a 5 car Chrysler blitz that began when Ma Mopar kicked up her new sexy heals in the mid ’90s.
Except for the last 2 these are all essentially 1st wave downsizing High Malaise era mid/full-sizers. Despite all coming out in late 1970s, almost all were still on sale in some form a decade later. Most were sold along variations of more modern cars that were supposed to replace them. But I like them all though the CV interests me less than the GM/Mopar products. I kinda like their more conservative traditional styling, not trying to be something they weren’t, but they also weren’t as overwrought as the early 70s cars. One of the first cars I remember was my dad’s ’79 Custom Cruiser which I much preferred to our ’88 Taurus Wagon. So I guess I am more late Brougham than jellybean era.
Interestingly most of these cars have a lot in common
A) Larger midsize or full-size cars
B) First wave downsizing
C) Most were intended to expire in 1983-84 but most were still on sale in 1988
D) This was because they were essentially right size and more interesting than their replacements
E) I and many others would prefer modern versions of these to what is being sold today.
2 Door version of the Crown Vic is very rare today and prized in the panther community