I am glad that my kids were not sitting in close proximity when I opened the email that informed me of the sale of L&L Classic Auto in Wendell, Idaho. Once I saw the ariel photos of nearly 100 acres full of cars, trucks, buildings and literally millions of parts, I muttered some swear words. We’re not talking shallow end of the pool kind of bad words, I went for the stuff that makes hardened criminals stop on their tracks. We have previously showed you junkyards and parts business that were selling out, but none of them had anything close to the kingdom of rusty gold that L&L has. Because of the conditions in Idaho, the rust on most of these cars should be mostly superficial and more along the line of “perfect patina” than “terminal disaster”. The yard it located about an hour and a half southeast of Boise comfortably resting in the middle of flipping nowhere.
The business has been open for 80 years and the owner has decided that it is time to hang up his car part peddling spurs and wants to sell the whole place off in a package deal and hand the new guy the keys. According to the ad, the place is so big lots of place hasn’t even been inventoried. That may sound like a nightmare to you, but can you consider for a moment the unbridled joy that would be the job of doing the yard “census” at this place?! It would take us the rest of our natural born lives but we’d wake up raring to go to work every morning. The list having about 100 55-57 Chevrolets some of which are wagons. There are Model Ts to beat the band and whatever else you can dream of. Sure, lots of the cars there are pedestrian models but who cares? The reality is that the decent sheet metal is what everyone wants and then you can “build to suit”, right? Outside of the umpteen thousand cars there are multiple buildings with parts crammed from floor to ceiling.
The photos below do a better job of telling this story than our words can. If it wasn’t so damned expensive to get to Boise, Idaho we’d be out there in a heartbeat to just look at the place. Any BangShifters near Wendell with a camera that we can deputize?
SCROLL DOWN FOR THE PHOTOS AND THE LINK FOR THE HEMMINGS AD!
Hemmings link: L&L Classic Auto – incredible vintage junkyard for sale
Who in their right mind would pay $3 Mil for who knows what? It would take another million just to organize what is there so you could sell it. RUST in peace!
$3 Million, that’s pocket change. I’m on a plane out there. And if I did have $3 million and bought the place I’d be dead with in an hour.
I just hope someone that can appreciate the place buys it. Not some corporation that’ll just send it all to the crusher.
Buy it. Go through it. Scrap metal all the stuff not salvageable. Bring in the stuff worth selling so it’s closer to the front, then parcel off the empty sections and sell them.
You would probably recoup about 1/2 your initial investment and still have a viable salvage yard business.
Land down there isnt wort a whole lot unless its in the irrigated swath. Rust, well it snows a lot down there and is dry in the summer so its not the best conditions. If I was less than 7 hours away I’d check it out.
the chemicals used to treat snow is what causes the severe rust problems, while im sure theres alot of junk panels out there anyone who knows what they are looking at can see the money in those pictures, that shell just bottom right of the frame of that one picture is 1500 at the very least, and thats without even knowing what it is exactly. could be alot more. i see fenders i see grills thats all dollar signs and its dollar signs to people who have the money to spend too.
“Honey? Would you consider moving to Idaho?” Not said by ANYONE with 3 million for a house.
Please repeat this to everyone you know. Those of us in Idaho would like nothing less than to keep ex-californians out
Amen to that!
and stop moving to Utah too Californians.. you made your mess, now live in it.
Amen!
We don’t want them libtards down in Texas either.
I’m an “ex-Californian”, and I moved to Texas because Idaho was too liberal for my tastes.
We’re currently experiencing an influx of New Yorkers, much to my dismay. I wish they’d just keep going until they got to the other coast.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, some Californians move because they don’t like the politics in CA.
Y’all been to a swap meet lately?
Truth be know, this could be a bargain for 3 Mil!
Just think about it, 8000 vintage cars!
I’d give a hundred just to get in and take pictures.
They aren’t making them any more!
How many years ya reckon it would take to sell everything off at swap meets? It would be a full time job going to a swap meet every week.
That’s $375.00 per car……cost + interest & fees
Still a bargain.
In the photos, I saw some nice old sheet metal.
One pic showed some late model mini vans. In Fl., they bring $500 for scrap, you do the math!
I’m also short on $, maybe John Satterfield and I could partner?
Driving through there this weekend – definitely going to stop and look!
I have walked through that place… Its cool
Stopped by this place on my way home from Speedweek last year. Lots of cool stuff. It was a car junkies wet dream.
IM 2hours away and about 2.9M short of making a deal. What fun it would be to choose the 100 or so I would want to keep.
Thank the good Lord that they didn’t stack them up!
Now, what will the EPA requirement for soil cleanup be?
screw the epa, all directions
I’d pay 3 Mil just to keep these classics out of the scrapper. They won’t be around forever and when they’re gone, they won’t be replaced. I’d move there in a heartbeat-
it’s art, and classic cars and history all rolled into one!
Ebay and 90% is sold
ebay and 90% of your profit goes up in fees
I’d scrap the newer stuff just so I could save the old stuff
let’s recycle all that crap and produce nice ecological hybrid cars !
Your Fuckin stupid
Yep, that’s exactly what the market demands since sales of the Volt and Leaf combined might exceed 17 units this year…
There is some gorgeous rusty gold there, but in that last pic, I also see a fleet of Chrysler Town and Country / Dodge Caravans. You may be paying 3 mil for a few cool cars and a bunch of garbage…
joke…
Not worth more than $150K, regardless of the cars.
who ever buys this land I hope you post the cars and sell them and not destroy them there is alot of people out there who would love to restore and bring back to life one of those old cars
I have been there many times, I know the owner, not too well, but he is a pain to deal with. He has alot of cool stuff in there, lots of valuable parts too. problem is he wants way too much for parts, and if you want a part off of a car in the yard, be prepared to buy the car attached to it. Every one in the Magic Valley knows him, everyone knows whats in there, and they are waiting for him to kick the can and actually deal with someone reasonable. But none the less it is really cool to walk the yard, there are all kinds of cars, in all kinds of conditions. If anyone is traveling through he is just outside of Wendell off the highway on the way to Gooding.
I’ve purchased many parts from l&l, for my 64′ Fiesta. There’s only about 20 of these cars that I know of.
Score for $3mil. Each car can part out for around $2500 some way more. You could easily have $10mil in profit! 🙂
Incredible points. Solid arguments. Keep uр thee great spirit.
Sell parts or chrush the junk get $400 per car and you clear profit after that.