Junkyard Gems: 15 Greatest American Wrecks

Resident junkyard adventurer Murilee Martin has discovered some pretty stunning abandoned automobiles scattered around America. And through his "Junkyard Gems" series, he always makes sure to bring back great photos and some fascinating history when he spies something good. He finds loads of these vehicles, too, so we wanted to highlight a few of our favorite finds from the last few years. In this slideshow, you'll find some of the most oddball, niche vehicles you've seen, along with a smattering of more famous American classics.

In 1950, shoppers in Chrysler showrooms had a choice between the low-end Royal, the midgrade Windsor, and the top-of-the-line New Yorker. This 1950 Windsor coupe managed to outlast nearly all of its contemporaries, finally coming to a halt in a wrecking yard just outside of Chicago. Read more.

1940s and 1950s cars do show up in the big self-service wrecking yards; for example, I was able to find a discarded 1941 Plymouth sedan to provide a complete set of body trim pieces for my 1941 Plymouth Special Deluxe project recently, and I have found everything from a '49 Kaiser to a '57 Mercedes-Benz 180 during my junkyard travels of the last decade. Here's a fairly complete and non-rusty '51 Plymouth in a Denver-area yard. Read more.

The Chrysler A Platform, built from the 1960 through 1976 model years for the North American market (and for a few years beyond that in Australia and Latin America), was one of Chrysler's greatest hits, if not the greatest hit. We know these cars best as the 1963-1976 Dodge Dart and the 1960-1976 Plymouth Valiant, and they established a reputation for reliability matched only by the likes of the Mercedes-Benz W123 diesel. I still see many of these cars during my junkyard wanderings, but A-Body wagons have become very rare. Here's a tattered '64 Dart wagon that I spotted in a self-service wrecking yard in San Jose, California. Read more.

Walk the rows of a big, high-inventory-turnover self-service wrecking yard and you'll find plenty of vehicles with controversial histories. Chevy Cobalts, with their malfunctioning ignition switches. Audi 5000s, of "Unintended Acceleration" fame. Exploding Pintos. Any of the 23 million Ford products of the "Park-To-Reverse" fiasco. And, of course, you'll still find the occasional example of the most controversial car in American automotive history: the Chevrolet Corvair. Here's a '64 convertible that I spotted last week in a Denver yard. Read more.

American-made vehicles much sought after by restorers usually don't show up in these yards, in my experience, which means that you won't have much luck finding, for example, 1964-1973 GM A-Body or Chrysler B-Body coupes. 1960s Mustangs and Camaros have been even more scarce during the last decade, which makes this non-rusty 1965 Ford Mustang hardtop in a Denver yard even more unusual than a junked Ford Tempo AWD. Read more.

Production of the fourth generation of Ford F-Series trucks ran from the 1962 through 1966 model years, and you'll still see these sturdy trucks working for a living after a half-century. Today's find appeared in a Denver self-service wrecking yard, with a solid-looking body and camper shell still attached. Read more.

The plot of the Mercury Cougar story took a lot of strange twists and turns during its 35 or so years, from ponycar to immense luxobarge to family sedan to station wagon to Integra competitor. Examples of the first Cougar generation are nearly extinct in American wrecking yards, so I was excited to spot this one in Denver. Read more.

Ah, the Pontiac Aztek. Everyone laughs at the Aztek ... except, apparently, for Coloradans who like to go camping, bike riding, hiking, and all that outdoorsy stuff that folks do in the Centennial State. You'll see Azteks being driven, unironically and without shame, all over the place in the Denver region, and now plenty of them are showing up in the local wrecking yards. Here's a first-year-of-production example in its final campground. Read more.

The debut of the Pontiac Solstice, back in 2005 for the 2006 model year, stirred up much excitement in the automotive world. Sales were brisk at first, and then they weren't so great… and then Pontiac itself went under The General's cost-cutting axe. One thing I heave learned during my junkyard travels is that even sought-after sports cars eventually reach a point at which they start showing up in the big self-service junkyards. For example, the BMW Z3 began appearing in such yards about five years ago, along with the Audi TT. While the Honda S2000 still appears to be exempt from this process, today's Junkyard Gem shows that the time has now come for the Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky. Read more.