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When Chrysler and Mitsubishi partnered to establish the Diamond-Star Motors plant in Illinois, the first cars built at that facility were 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipses along with their Eagle Talon and Plymouth Laser twins. The Eclipse went through four generations, with 2012 as the final model year. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of the very last Eclipses, found in a Denver car graveyard recently.
Starting in 1972, Ford began selling Mazda Proceed pickups with Courier badges in the United States. At the same time, Mazda was selling the same trucks here as the B-Series. Then the Ranger replaced the Courier in 1983, while the B-Series remained available in North America through 1993. For 1994, the Mazda/Ford pickup world got flipped on its head, with a Mazda-ized Ranger taking over the B-Series name here. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of the early Ford-built Mazda pickups, found in a North Carolina car graveyard recently.
Volvo began selling brick-shaped rear-wheel-drive station wagons in the United States with the 145 in the 1968 model year, continuing the tradition with the 200, 700 and 900 series wagons and all the way through the very last 1998 V90s. The benefits of front-wheel-drive proved impossible for those Göteborgers to resist, though, and so the 850 was developed. The 850 sedan first appeared in the United States as a 1993 model, with the wagon version following in 1994. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of those first-year 850 wagons, found in a Colorado Springs self-service yard recently.
With the introduction of the new Fox-platform Mustang for the 1979 model year, the Pinto-derived Mustang II was shown the door and a new era of Mustang performance began. Mustangs with ever-more-powerful V8s and turbocharged four-bangers hit the streets, rappers sang their praises and hot-rodded Ford ponies took over the drag strips. The thing is, we often forget that the Mustang also remained faithful to its origins as a sporty-looking yet economical commuter car during the Fox era, which means that plenty were sold with gas-sipping base engines and penny-pinching price tags. Here's one of those cars, found in a North Carolina self-service knacker's yard recently.
Chrysler's low-price Plymouth division did very well in the United States after the guns of World War II fell silent, with strong sales of its cheap and sensible cars through the early 1950s. By 1954, however, Plymouth was slipping in the standings, its sales numbers being surpassed by GM's Oldsmobile and Buick divisions during that year. Much of the reason for that was the increasingly antiquated appearance of the '54 Plymouths, which hadn't changed much since 1949, but well over 400,000 cars still drove out of Plymouth showrooms as 1954 models. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of those cars, found in a Denver-area self-service yard recently.
If you want to find examples of punitive automotive depreciation, look no further than the European luxury sedans in your local Ewe Pullet car graveyard. How about a Mercedes-Benz S600, which sold new for an inflation-adjusted $282,544? Or a BMW 745i and its $114,895 price tag in today's money? Big, powerful Audi sedans face the Depreciation Grim Reaper as well, and today's Junkyard Gem was the one of the most expensive 2007 models Americans could buy with the logo representing Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer on its snout.
When you're a young city-dweller and your car is a generic 20-year-old sedan with the base engine, what do you do? You personalize it, of course, and that's what the final owner of this Accord LX did. An unfortunate rear-end collision sent this car to a Denver car graveyard, giving us an illustrative snapshot of a place and time in popular automotive culture.
The beginning of the end for station wagons arrived as the second half of the 1980s dawned, thanks to Chrysler's introduction of its game-changing minivans and AMC's introduction of the even more influential XJ Jeep Cherokee (both as 1984 models), but few noticed at first. At that time, GM's Chevrolet Division still offered wagons in three different sizes: the Cavalier, Celebrity and Caprice Classic; today's Junkyard Gem is an example of the middle type, found in a Denver self-service yard recently.