Seeing the photos that Lohnes and Fitzgerald took at Gates Auto Salvage keeps bringing up the word “haunting” into my head. It’s not hard to see why: in amongst the thin trees, you see visages of the past: the long roof of a station wagon here, the massive chrome grille of an old Buick there. A 1958 Chevrolet on it’s side, the massive hulk of a mid-1970s Ford sinking back into the Earth from where it came. Junkyards fascinate me, because all of the man-hours and dollars spent designing, engineering and building a car that someone was over the moon to buy sooner or later end up there. There is no more maintenance, there is no more honeymoon period of “It’s my new car, Jim!”, it’s just that old beater in the corner, rusting away. It’s kind of sad, really, but knowing that there is a flat offer of $500 to take any car away before the yard brings in the crusher does temper the sadness somewhat, and knowing that some of the more far-gone pieces will be used to keep other cars alive helps too. Meanwhile, for the time being at least, they are the remains of what was, quietly resting in the woods of Vermont, and we only took photos to share with you.
Is that steam engine $500 also?
Looks like a hit and miss engine?
Thank you for this series of photos. Please, when you’re finished with this salvage yard, find another one.
Oh…I forgot to mention….I was in New Mexico this summer. I was amazing at the amount of salvage yards they have. All the cars were neatly placed in rows upon rows in the desert sand. The bonus, is there were no trees and weeds to wade through. All the machines I saw were ’30s to 70’s era.
How many of those cars were left there because a a simple drivetrain problem that would have easily been repaired? I bet many due to rot though. Im always amazed that people in the southwest junk cars at all. You see them sitting for years with no rot at all.