It has been a while since I delved into the Copart search engine to find old crunched up stuff. As you’d expect, the company’s national network of salvage yards and sales outlets has a pretty massive stockpile of old stuff. Many of the cars are actually in decent shape and could be drive with some work. Frankly, that’s another story for another day. In this blog item I go hunting for old cars that have suffered some sort of really gnarly end to their driving days. Fires, crashes, and whatever else has befallen many of these cars and now they can be bought for a fraction of their former value. Maybe some will be fixed up, parted out, or just picked for aVIN tag (even though we know that is wrong, it certainly happens!).

Without further adieu, please don your protective gear and follow us as we head into the morgue for this first look at 2015’s freshest Copart Cadavers…none of them cars or trucks newer than 1972. There’s some scary stuff in here –

1969 Olds 442 –

This poor brown Olds rolled over and struck something pretty hard with its nose. Or it struck something pretty hard with its nose and then rolled over. The roof damage seems pretty weird because of the way that the top of the windshield is preserved but the roof panel itself is so caved in. We’re not even going to attempt a “junior accident reconstruction” analysis of this mess. The good thing is that it looks like occupants were belted in because the windshield does not appear to have acted as a passenger catch fence. Yowza!

1934 Ford kit car –

This ‘glass 1934 Ford suffered one heck of a fire. It looks like the carb itself completely (or mostly) melted, the brake boosted vaporized and even the interior got completely charred. The aluminum valve covers also melted like the carb and booster. We are always harping on fire safety and having an extinguisher with you. Who knows if an extinguisher would have stopped whatever started this but we do know that not having an extinguisher guarantees a 100% failure rate. This looks like it was a cool car with nice wheels and a modern stance before the blaze. Ouch.

1972 Chevy pickup – SALE LINK

Boy did this thing take a shot! Clearly T-Boned by something either traveling at a high rate of speed or something with a significant amount of weight behind it, this is officially a banana of a pickup truck. On the plus side, there is a 400ci small block sitting under the hood that could be scavenged along with what we’re guessing is a Turbo 400 transmission. We’re surprised that the front glass didn’t pop out with the amount that the whole cab has to be bent and tweaked. Wowsers.

1967 Convertible, four speed, Pontiac GTO – SALE LINK

Holy smokes, this is ugly. The car obviously suffered some sort of high speed impact and it buckled like crazy. Think it may have rolled over? Tough to tell but Copart in the cars description lists the damage as being “all over” and they ain’t kidding. Outside of some interior pieces and maybe the engine and transmission, there’s not much left of this car that before the accident was probably work some bucks. It looks like it had a decent set of wheels on it and judging on by how clean the non-destroyed panels are, the machine was well kept. This one’s a shame.

1970 Ford Maverick – SALE LINK

No, the Ford crowd is not getting away from this one unscathed. This little 1970 Maverick surely looks like it was a hot little car before the front of it met an immovable (or extremely difficult to move) object with a good amount of force behind it. The car’s nose is destroyed and the suspension on the passenger side is all but torn completely off. When you look under the hood the small block Ford engine sure looks like it has some life and suds lift in it. Fare thee well Maverick….

1971 Opel GT – SALE LINK

It was scantly more than a year ago that I last spent time in an Opel GT on the freeways of this great country. I was cruising with pal 0′ mine Elana Scherr from Hot Rod Magazine and we were driving her cherry Opel to a media thing. Anyway, there we were, the smallest thing on the road by a TON. Mini-vans looked like Nimitz class carriers coming by. It was sobering to think what would happen if you crashed in one. And here we are. This is truly the definition of “not a straight panel left on the car”. Because there isn’t.

1965 Mustang convertible – SALE LINK

Since 1964.5 millions of Mustangs have been produced and sold all over the world. Few of them have left their useable life in as violent a fashion as this poor 1965 convertible did. We’re not sure if it was a wall, a fortress, or a walled fortress but it hit whatever it hit with authority. The completely mangled nose is one thing but the fact that it has that weirdo banana upwards curve means that there’s big structural damage under there as well. Wonder if you can get the motor out by any other means than rotary saw?

1971 Corvette – SALE LINK

I can’t do one of these without including at least one Corvette that has been cooked down to the very bones. So here’s a 1971 model that has an engine which would be easy to remove and already has an Edelbrock intake on it for your horsepower making needs! Until the next time….drive safe!