In the old days before eBay and such, not many people would go to a junkyard to buy anything they weren’t going to install on another vehicle themselves.

Activity like this has its ups and downs. First off, it’s an honest buck. They’re taking stuff that’s only available to someone willing to go and physically remove it from that vehicle in that yard and opening it up to a wider market. That means I can get a clean fender from down south for something that hasn’t been made in my lifetime without leaving my house. And hopefully, more parts are reused before what’s left eventually gets crushed.

The downside is that means there’s more competition for you, the guy who needs the thing. And even before this, there’s always been two types of people at the junkyard: those who are careful not to destroy something which could be of use to someone else; and those who will smash and cut their way to what they’re after. More people pulling parts likely means more of the latter.

The rest is me going down memory lane…

When I was a kid in the late 90s, my (now deceased) stepfather would let me tag along to all the local junkyards with him as he worked on rebuilding an early 90s Ford Tempo to be my stepsister’s first car. It had been in an accident just bad enough to need most of the stuff that bolted to the front end, a radiator, and a few other small things.

He taught me that you never knew what the next person would need, so if it even looks salvageable, don’t cause it any more harm. We saw the results of that when plastic grille and light components had been smashed out to get to the radiator, or something else. Between that and how cars less than ten years old wind up in a junkyard in the first place, I did a lot of scouting around looking for more Tempos (especially gray ones with a good front end) while he wrenched off parts from a car that had some of what was on the list.