You Never Know What You’ll Find At the Junkyard

There are some crazy finds you can make while walking through your local junk yard. Imagine if you will going through your local yard looking for a part for your F 150 and ending up seeing a Crown Vic, black and white, complete with attachments for sirens! It happens, and more than you’d think. Those old cop cars don’t last forever, and sometimes they end up in the lot next to civilian vehicles, and can be gotten for the same generally low prices you expect to find in one of these yards. It’s happened more than once that I’ve seen old cop cars and other curious finds when I’m out doing a yard crawl looking for parts. It pays to just snoop around these places and do more than just look for parts for the car that you are trying to find a part for. Many a time I’ve gone through a yard and been shocked to find cars in relatively good condition that were the better part of four decades old and even older.

Blast From the Past

I laughed when I walked past a nearly exact replica of my father’s old 1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V. But when I got closer I stopped laughing. The car was in relatively good condition for a thirty eight year old car, including a nearly perfect white top. The long sleek lines were a bit worse for wear, but c’mon, it’s sitting in a junk yard for who knows how long. The burgundy paint looked dull but it could have been spruced up with ten minutes worth of work.

After having gotten my tax check back from Uncle Sam last year, I decided to finish working on my old 1990 Ford F-150 Lariat, and thought the right way to go way to head down to http://www.indypicapart.com/ to see what I could find. Just because you have money does not mean you want to spend it, but that changed when I saw that car. I loved that thing, and it really bothered me when my father sold it before my seventeenth birthday to get a nicer, newer car. I told myself that I was going to get myself one of these things and treat it nice, the way my father did before he had to sell it. I spoke to the guy at the yard, Paul was his name. I asked him to hold onto it for forty eight hours, I wanted to go home and talk to my wife about getting it. He said he would and I thanked him and left. I had met her shortly after my father got rid of it, and she knew the lament I sang back then about how much I wanted that thing.

I showed my wife the number. She looked at me and looked back at the number, then back to me and said "We need new windows. We need to fix the bathroom. We can’t do that and get you your childhood dream." I argued, I did my best to convince her that we could do both, but she was right.

Deferred But Not Forgotten

So I went back and told them to release the car, I couldn’t get it. After I got back, my wife and I did the windows and got the new bathtub. It took nearly all of the money we had saved and that tax refund to get it done, but the house and our lives are better for it. I love my wife but I told her that I am going to save my money and get that car, or something close to it. So it’s a year later and I go back and I asked if they had a Mark V anywhere on the lot. It took a few minutes to dig it up on the database, but they found it! It wasn’t the same car, and the color was different, but it was the same make and model. I told my wife about it and I have good news. This one I am taking home.

About the Author: Toby B. Jackson is a contributing author and certified automotive mechanic with specialties in transmission and engine repair. He often recommends customers interested in buying parts for their cars without spending too much forget auto parts stores and go to Indy Pic a Part instead, no hassle, no fuss and the best prices. He trusts their tradition of outstanding service, quality, value and customer care.

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