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Author: Murilee Martin

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2000s, Automotive History, Crossover, Economy Cars, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, music, Suzuki

Junkyard Gem: 2008 Suzuki SX4 Crossover


If you want to find some interesting automotive history in your local Ewe Pullet, finding any U.S.-market Suzuki model and peering into its background will tell you a lot about the global car industry from the middle 1980s through just over a decade ago. The Suzuki tale gets a bit convoluted during the second half of the 2010s here; in recent months, I’ve documented discarded examples of the 2008 XL-7 (derived from the Saturn Vue), the 2008 Reno (based on the final Lacetti designed by pre-GM Daewoo) and the 2009 Equator (a thinly disguised Nissan Frontier). Today’s Junkyard Gem is a second-model-year SX4 Crossover, found in a Colorado Springs car graveyard recently.

Suzuki began selling motorcycles in the United States in 1963 (no, the Suzuki Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company was never affiliated with the Suzuki Motor Company, Suzuki being a very common Japanese family name), but we didn’t get highway-legal Suzuki-built four-wheeled vehicles here until the Chevrolet Sprint showed up as a 1985 model, followed the next year by the Suzuki Samurai. Then the 1990s gave us Geo-badged Suzukis (the Metro and Tracker) as well as their Suzuki-badged siblings (the Swift and Sidekick), plus Esteems, X-90s, Vitaras and Grand Vitaras.

The plotline of American Suzuki story goes through some strange twists and turns during the 2000s, mostly due to Suzuki’s role in the far-flung General Motors Empire and GM’s purchase of Daewoo’s car-building operations. Some Daewoos were sold here with Suzuki badges (the Verona, Reno and Forenza), while only the Vitara, Grand Vitara, XL-7 and Aerio remained as pure Suzuki products by 2006.

The SX4 was the Aerio’s successor and debuted here as a 2007 model. It was available in “tall hatchback” crossover and— a year later— sedan form, both styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro and based on a platform developed in partnership with Fiat. The SX4 name stands for Sport X-over for 4 Seasons, which isn’t quite as tortured an acronym as, say, the ones other Japanese carmakers assigned to hardware such as the Powerful & Economic Lightweight Accurate Silent Mighty Advanced or the Lightweight Advanced Super Response Engine. The American Motors Corporation had already used the SX/4 name on a sporty crossover hatchback for the 1981-1983 model years, but perhaps AMC’s use of a slash character made it seem sufficiently different for Suzuki to use.

Upon its launch, the SX4 Crossover was the cheapest AWD-equipped new car available in the United States, with an MSRP starting at $14,999 for the 2007 model (that’s about $23,234 in 2024 dollars).

Our reviewer thought it was garbage, to put it mildly, stating “if you just gotta have a new all-wheel-drive car and cost is your second biggest concern, go get an SX4.” The “security system” (a red LED blinking on the dashboard) and lack of cargo space displeased him mightily, as did the manual gearshift (which felt like “moving a steel rod around in a bucket of pea gravel”).

This car has the base five-speed manual, in fact, which saved the original purchaser $1,100 on the cost of an automatic ($1,704 after inflation).

The engine is a 2.0-liter straight-four rated at 143 horsepower and 136 pound-feet.

It was an affordable car that could deal with snow and mud while looking somewhat truck-ish, and it hauled people around for 16 years.

Suzuki brought out the pretty decent Kizashi for 2010, but it was too late. The company gave up on selling cars and trucks here for 2013, after which the only new highway-legal Suzukis available here had two wheels apiece. Suzuki still does well selling cars elsewhere, though, with the Hustler reigning at or near the top of the JDM best-seller list for quite a few years.

Just because there’s a gas crisis doesn’t have to mean there’s a fun crisis.

The SX4’s European cousin was called the Fiat Sedici.

Gets good traction even on a violin.

 



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1990s, Automotive History, Classics, geo, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, music, nummi, Performance, Sedan, Toyota

Junkyard Gem: 1990 Geo Prizm GSi


GM created the Geo brand in order to sell vehicles built and/or designed by its Japanese partners: Suzuki, Isuzu and Toyota. The Geo Prizm was sibling to Toyota’s E90 Sprinter and built at the NUMMI plant in California from the 1990 through 1997 model years (after which it became a Chevrolet through 2002). For 1990 through 1992, a high-performance version of the Prizm called the GSi was available, and I’ve found a rare hatchback version in a Colorado wrecking yard.

Though the Prizm was based on the Corolla-related JDM Toyota Sprinter, it was mechanically identical to same-year Corollas then being sold in the United States (and built on the same assembly line in Fremont). The powertrain in the Prizm GSi is what was bolted into the same-year U.S.-market Corolla GT-S.

In this case, that means a “red top” 4A-GE DOHC 1.6-liter straight-four, rated at 130 horsepower.

A five-speed manual was base equipment, but this car has the optional four-speed automatic.

The hatchback Prizm, which was based on the JDM Sprinter Cielo, was built for just the 1990 and 1991 model years. I’ve found a few Prism GSi notchback sedans during my junkyard travels, but this is the first hatchback version.

NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated) in the San Francisco Bay Area was GM’s Fremont Assembly plant from 1963 through 1982 prior to becoming a joint Toyota-GM venture in 1984. NUMMI shut down in 2010 after the final Corolla was built there, after which it became the Tesla Factory. I had a warehouse job during the summer of 1989 that involved delivering paint filters to NUMMI, so perhaps I hauled the filters that strained the paint that went on this very car.

This one is well-equipped, with air conditioning and a decent-for-1990 AM/FM/cassette deck boasting Dolby, digital tuning and auto-reverse.

It traveled just short of 175,000 miles during its career, which is pretty good for a car of its era but not very impressive compared to some of the extreme-high-mile junkyard Toyotas I’ve documented. Members of the Corolla family, being cheaper than Camrys, Avalons, Previas and so forth, tend to get thrown away before reaching 300,000 miles (though I’ve found a 322k-mile 1990 Prizm, a 315k-mile 1991 Corolla wagon and a 311k-mile 1996 Corolla sedan in boneyards).

Starting with the 1993 model year, the Prizm became an E100 Sprinter and the GSi version got the axe.

More power than the Civic, a better warranty than the Corolla, cheaper than the BMW 3 Series.

Oldsmobile hired Leonard Nimoy to pitch its futuristic machinery, but Geo got Harlan Ellison.



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1970s, Automotive History, Classics, diesel cars, diesel engine, Diesel Vehicles, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, Malaise, malaise era, mercedes w114, Mercedes-Benz, mercedes-benz e-class, music, Sedan

Junkyard Gem: 1975 Mercedes-Benz 240D


How underpowered must a vehicle be to be considered intolerable to drive? The only new car Americans can buy with two-digit horsepower right now is the 78-horse Mitsubishi Mirage, widely considered to be miserably slow, but today’s 62-horsepower Junkyard Gem was much, much more sluggish than that car. It was also one of the most reliable motor vehicles ever built, period, and its long career ended during the winter in a snowy Colorado car graveyard.

This is a W114 (technically a W115 thanks to its four-cylinder engine, but most people apply the W114 designation to both types nowadays) proto-E-Class, the immediate predecessor to the legendary W123. The W114/W115 was built from 1968 through 1976 and sold well in North America.

No other major car manufacturer could match Mercedes-Benz in build quality during the middle 1970s, except perhaps Toyota with its Century (which was handbuilt in tiny quantities with Emperor Hirohito as its target customer).

With gasoline shortages and ever-higher fuel prices in the wake of the OPEC oil embargo of late 1973, a well-built sedan that got excellent fuel economy on cheap and reasonably easy-to-find diesel seemed like a smart long-term purchase for American car shoppers with sufficient funds. The engine in the U.S.-market 1975 240 D was a 2.4-liter inline-four SOHC oil-burner rated at 62 horsepower and 97 pound-feet.

That gave this 3,205-pound car a power-to-weight ratio of 51.7 pounds per horsepower, which makes the 2024 Mirage with its 28 pounds per horse accelerate like a Saturn V rocket by comparison. Back in 1982, I took my driver-training instruction in a 48-horsepower 1979 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel, which I considered terrifyingly slow even by Late Malaise Era standards, and it boasted a mighty 40.7 pounds per horsepower (yes, diesel torque helps, but nowhere near enough). In 1982 and 1983, the power-to-weight nadir of U.S.-market vehicles during the modern era appears to have been achieved by the Volkswagen Vanagon Diesel, each horsepower of which had to drag an awe-inspiring 67.3 pounds.

The U.S.-market 1975 240 D was available with a four-speed manual transmission, but the original buyer of this one bought the four-speed automatic instead.

Yes, it was extremely slow. So what? These cars rode nicely and rarely suffered from mechanical woes.

The MSRP for this car with automatic transmission and air conditioning (which it has) would have been $10,257, or about $61,729 in 2024 dollars, which is not so far away from current E-Class prices. Meanwhile, a brand-new 1975 Cadillac Sedan DeVille with a 500-cubic-inch (8.3-liter) V8 listed at a mere $8,601 ($51,763 after inflation). The Cadillac was bigger, more comfortable, more powerful… and a lot thirstier than the 240 D.

Unfortunately, Mercedes-Benz hadn’t gotten around to installing six-digit odometers in the W114 by 1975, which means we can’t know what its final mileage total was. I’ve found discarded diesel Mercedes-Benzes with well over a half-million miles showing, and this car might well have driven just as far during its life.

With so many of these cars still on the road, we can expect to find them in junkyards for decades to come.

You got what you paid for with the W114.



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1980s, Automotive History, Classics, Ford, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, music, SUV

Junkyard Gem: 1983 Ford Bronco


Ford built the Bronco from the 1966 through 1996 model years, after which it was replaced by the Expedition and its four doors. Then came 2021, when a brand-new Bronco appeared to do sales battle with the Jeep Wrangler. Broncos from the first couple of decades of production are junkyard rarities today, and the few that do show up in the boneyards tend to be mangled beyond recognition or picked clean within days of arrival. That made this ’83, found in a Denver-area yard, an extra-special Junkyard Gem.

The first-generation (1966-1977) Bronco was built on its own bespoke chassis with a very short 92″ wheelbase, just an inch longer than that of the little MGB sports car. For 1978, the Bronco moved to a shortened version of the F-Series truck chassis, becoming much bigger in every dimension and gaining more than 1,500 pounds in the process. The Bronco remained a member of the F-Series family all the way through the end of production in 1996, getting updates paralleling those of F-100/F-150 generations.

This one is a member of the third Bronco generation, built from the 1980 through 1986 model years.

The door tag tells us that it was built in December of 1982 at Ford’s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, and that it was sold new via the sales office in Seattle, Washington.

The base engine in the 1983 Bronco was the 300-cubic-inch (4.9-liter) straight-six, a sturdy truck-only plant rated at 115 horsepower and 223 pound-feet in this application. 302 and 351 (5.0- and 5.8-liter) Windsor V8s were available as options.

The base transmission in the 1983 Bronco was a four-on-the-floor manual, which could be equipped with an overdrive top gear for $78 extra ($250 in 2024 dollars). That’s what’s in this truck.

The F-Series-based Bronco became more comfortable (alongside its pickup siblings) as the generations went by, but the third-generation version was a noisy, rough-riding real truck that would be considered intolerably crude by modern SUV standards.

This one didn’t get built with many options, but it did get the extra-cost rear window defroster with this afterthought of a switch.

Air conditioning? Not at $729 ($2,337 after inflation). Just open the windows!

The MSRP for the base ’83 Bronco was $10,589, or about $33,948 in today’s dollars.

Just to confuse everybody, Ford began selling a compact SUV based on the Ranger for the 1984 model year, calling it the Bronco II. This was in keeping with the tradition established when full-sized LTDs were sold alongside Torino-based LTD IIs during the mid-to-late 1970s. Since the current Bronco is based on the Ranger platform, that makes it more the spiritual descendant of the Bronco II than of the F-Series-based 1980-1996 Bronco.

Perhaps delivering the new Ford trucks via helicopter assault while “Ride of the Valkyries” plays was in poor taste, just six years after the Fall of Saigon and two years after “Apocalypse Now” hit theaters.

You won’t believe the deals on new ’83s at National Ford Truck Week!



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1990s, Automotive History, Canada, Classics, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, manual, Manual Transmission, manual transmissions, Minivan/Van, music, Transporter, Volkswagen, volkswagen transporter, vw bus, vw transporter, vw van

Junkyard Gem: 1992 Volkswagen EuroVan CL


Volkswagen is once again in the van-selling business in the United States, after a best-forgotten period of attempting to sell rebadged Chrysler minivans plus the occasional teasing of vans that we never got here. The last gasp for the good old VW Transporter aka VW Bus here was the fourth-generation model, known in North America as the EuroVan and sold from the 1992 through 2003 model years. Here’s a first-year EuroVan, found in a Denver-area knacker’s yard recently.

The EuroVan had to compete against increasingly popular SUVs plus a huge range of affordable minivans from Detroit and Japan, so not many made it to our shores and they are quite rare in junkyards today. I find quite a few third-generation Transporters (aka Vanagons) during my junkyard travels, as well as the occasional second-generation model, but years go by between EuroVan sightings.

This one was built for new sale in Canada. I find Canadian-market cars in United States junkyards regularly, including a 1985 Peugeot 505, a 1991 Honda Civic, a 1997 Acura EL and a 2004 Acura EL. It’s legal for a Canadian- or Mexican-registered vehicles to drive in the United States for one year, after which it must return home or get proper registration in the United States. Since 1992 is well before the 25-year federal importation limit, this van might have been imported legally after 2017.

The instrument cluster was gone, so I didn’t see the telltale km/h speedometer, but the transmission type suggested that the original buyer of this van purchased it across the border. EuroVans with five-speed manual transmissions were sold in the United States, but few bought them.

The engine is a 2.5-liter gasoline-burning straight-five, rated at 109 horsepower. Since this van scales in at just under two tons, it would have been firmly within the tradition of excruciatingly slow VW Transporters.

It’s never a good sign for junkyard engine shoppers when you see spare engine parts inside the vehicle.

EuroVan sales in the United States continued through 2003, and these vans still have their devoted zealots enthusiasts in the United States today. There are two of them that park on the street in my Denver neighborhood, though I’m sure those Transporters don’t impress the owners of the half-dozen Vanagon Syncros who also live within a few blocks.

It’s definitely not a minivan, according to VWoA’s marketers.

Nothing mini about it!

When you do some serious begetting, you require something bigger than a Passat.

VW never gave up on the Transporter for Europe.

Just the thing for hard work.



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1990s, Automotive History, Classics, Economy Cars, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, Kia, music, Sedan

Junkyard Gem: 1995 Kia Sephia


Kia is a well-established brand in the United States today, with Kias seen all over our roads. The Kia brand only showed up here just about 30 years ago, though, and the very first ones were Sephia sedans. Here’s one of those now-rare cars, found in a Denver-area self-service car graveyard recently.

I’d been looking for a discarded 1994-1996 Sephia for years, but they were cheap and disposable cars and most got crushed long ago; the second-generation (1997-2003) models are much easier to find today. Then I got a tip from Mason, the knowledgeable aficionado of unappreciated Centennial State iron who runs the excellent Unloved Cars of Colorado Instagram account, about a Sephia with a 1994 build date in a local boneyard. He’d seen a listing for this car a bit earlier when it was up for sale on Facebook Marketplace and saved screenshots. Yes, a running, driving car with not-so-expired tags and just a few minor problems wouldn’t sell even with such a low price tag! What’s wrong with the world?

The build tag shows that it rolled out of the Hwaseong plant in August 1994, which was six months after four dealerships in Portland, Oregon, began selling the Sephia. Other Kia dealerships opened up elsewhere in the Western United States later that year, and today’s Junkyard Gem was sold during that period. Those of you who know old Fords might notice that the build tag sticker on the driver’s door is nearly identical to those applied to Dearborn machinery from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, and there’s a good reason for that.

Kia Motors got started in the car business by license-building vehicles in South Korea for other companies, mostly Mazdas but also Peugeots and Fiats. Then Ford partnered with Kia to build an Americanized version of the Kia Pride, itself based on the Mazda 121, which was sold here as the Ford Festiva for the 1988 through 1993 model years (and, after the Pride entered its second generation, as the 1994-1997 Ford Aspire).

Here’s the build tag for a 1990 Festiva, which uses exactly the same sticker as the ones that went onto 1990s Kias. Why re-invent the wheel decal, even if Ford’s DSO codes are totally meaningless on a Kia?

The Kia was joined by the Sportage mini-SUV later in 1995. Then Kia Motors declared bankruptcy in 1997 and was gobbled up by the Hyundai Motor Company in 1998. After that, Kias became increasingly Hyundized.

How cheap was this car? It’s a base-model RS with manual transmission, so its MSRP would have been $8,495 (about $17,722 in 2024 dollars). The 1995 Hyundai Elantra sedan started at $10,199 ($21,277 after inflation), while the base Saturn SL sedan (which almost nobody bought) could be had for as little as $9,995 ($20,951 today).

This SOHC 16-valve engine sure looks like a member of the Mazda B family, and that’s exactly what it is. Displacement is 1.8 liters, output was 125 horsepower and 108 pound-feet.

An automatic transmission added $950 ($1,982 today) to the cost of the 1995 Sephia, so the original purchaser of this car stuck with the base five-on-the-floor manual.

Air conditioning? Not for 850 bucks, thanks very much (that’s 1,773 of today’s bucks).

There’s a 1997 Air Force Academy parking sticker on the bumper, so it would seem that this car has lived all or most of its life in Colorado.

Phil Long Kia in Colorado Springs is still in business today.

It’s not a gem in the sense that it was a great car (though the case can be made that it was a pretty good value for the money when it was new), but it’s a gem of automotive history for sure.

Why not take on the Honda Civic right off the bat? The cheapest possible Civic sedan for 1995 was the DX, which had an MSRP of $11,980 (about $24,992 today). Of course, 1990s Hondas tended to last for many, many, many, many miles, but it’s best to aim high when you’re a newcomer.

This commercial is a blatant ripoff (or homage, if you prefer) of the famous 1969 AMC Rebel “Driving School” ad, right down to the horn-rim glasses on the instructor.

The Sephia’s home-market TV commercials got screaming engines and macho voiceovers. Seh-PEE-yah!





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1960s, Automotive History, Chevrolet, chevrolet corvair, chevy corvair, Classics, corvair, Economy Cars, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, music, Ralph Nader, Sedan

Junkyard Gem: 1962 Chevrolet Corvair 700 4-Door Sedan


Recently, we took a look at a solid late-production Chevy Corvair coupe in a Denver junkyard, and some readers couldn’t believe that anybody would throw away such a rare classic. Hold onto your hats, Corvair fans, because eight Corvairs just showed up in the inventory of a yard in Colorado Springs. Because we just saw a coupe from the final couple of years of Corvair production, I’ve selected an early four-door sedan from the eightsome to follow it in this series.

U-Pull-&-Pay got the model years wrong for most of these cars in their system, probably because deciphering serial numbers and build tags from the pre-17-digit-VIN era requires manufacturer-specific knowledge. All eight of these Corvairs are coupes and post sedans; none are hardtop sedans, wagons, pickups, convertibles or vans.

Corvair production came to about 2 million from the 1960 through 1969 model years, and there are still plenty of project Corvairs sitting in garages and driveways, so they’re not particularly hard to find in American wrecking yards nowadays. I’ll run across two or three per year during my junkyard explorations, but finding this many at once at a U-Pull facility is a new experience for me.

The U-Pull-&-Pay employees I asked about these cars told me that a man brought them all in at once and told them that he had quite a few more Corvairs. I’m guessing that this is the result of a Corvair enthusiast with a storage lot purging unneeded parts cars.

The Corvair, with an air-cooled rear-mounted engine, was a radical design by the Detroit standards of its era and remains the most controversial American car ever made. Sales peaked in the 1961 and 1962 model years, began a gradual decline after that, then collapsed in 1966. Production continued through 1969, but by then hardly anyone was paying attention. Perhaps you blame Ralph Nader, or GM’s clumsy attempts to squash Ralph Nader, or the government regulations inspired by Ralph Nader, or the comfortingly traditional Chevy II/Nova, or even the Renault Caravelle.

I recommend that you read Aaron Severson’s exhaustively researched and annotated Corvair history — which begins with the development of a small-car concept at GM during World War II — in order to get the full story.

This car was built during at the Oakland Assembly plant in California, where production of the Chevrolet Four-Ninety kicked off in 1916. Oakland Assembly shut down in 1963, to be replaced by Fremont Assembly (which became NUMMI in 1984 and is now the Tesla Factory) about 25 miles to the southeast. The site of Oakland Assembly is  Eastmont Town Center today.

The engine is a 145-cubic-inch (2.4-liter) air-cooled pushrod boxer-six with dual carburetors and the distinctive “around-the-corner” fan belt system that looked funky but worked well. Horsepower was 80 if you got the three- or four-speed manual transmission and 84 on cars equipped with the two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission.

This car does have the Powerglide, which was shifted via a little lever under the dash, to the left of the radio.

The optional AM-only radio was a $57 option, which comes to about $596 in 2024 dollars (and was worth it in order to listen to the top hits of 1962 on a scratchy mono dash speaker). Note the scary triangle-in-a-circle Civil Defense symbols at 640 and 1240 kHz; those indicated the CONELRAD stations that would give instructions in case Tupolev Tu-95s were on their way bearing thermonuclear bombs.

Below the AM radio is a Pace CB-143 23-channel CB radio of mid-1970s vintage. This unit was sold around the time that C.W. McCall’s CB-centric song “Convoy” was #1 in the music charts. By the way, you can download free MP3s of C.W.’s advice to truckers crossing the Rockies on Interstate 70 — called out via mile marker — via his website.

It appears that about three decades have passed since this car last saw regular use, based on this 1992 West Coast Gas magnetic dash calendar. Just by chance, the 1992 and 2024 calendars are the same, including the leap day in February, so a junkyard shopper who gets this one would find its remaining months relevant for current use.

The 700 was the mid-grade Corvair in 1962, sandwiched between the base 500 and the sporty Monza 900. The MSRP for today’s Junkyard Gem with automatic transmission would have been $2,268, or about $23,704 after inflation. A 1963 Ford Falcon Futura sedan with two-speed Ford-O-Matic automatic started at $2,377 ($24,843 in today’s money), but it was a bigger car with a real coolant-fed heater.

At some point, the owner of this car proudly belonged to both the Pikes Peak Corvair Club and the Corvair Society of America.

This “VAIRFIGNEWTEN” sticker must be some Corvair Society inside joke from decades past.

Worth restoring? There’s very little rust-through plus you’d find a lot of parts donors nearby, but I think it would take at least $20,000 to turn this into a $15,000 car.

Claws at trails through the glue-like ooze of Withlacoochie Swamp! Do you think the Falcon (or Valiant) could have handled that?



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1990s, Automotive History, Classics, Coupe, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, music, Pontiac

Junkyard Gem: 1999 Pontiac Firebird Coupe


When Chevrolet introduced the Camaro for the 1967 model year, Pontiac got its own version at the same time (in contrast to Mercury, which had to wait a few years to start selling Mustang-sibling Cougars). This was the Firebird, which stayed in production until both it and the Camaro were discontinued after the 2002 model year. Today’s Junkyard Gem is a base Firebird coupe from the final fourth generation, found in a Colorado car graveyard recently.

These days, first- and second-generation (1967-1969 and 1970-1981) Firebirds are all but impossible to find in the big self-service wrecking yards, while the 1982-1992 third-generation cars still show up from time to time. Those looking for discarded 1994-2002 Firebirds have a somewhat easier time, though sales numbers were never great compared to those of the earlier cars.

The fourth-generation Camaros and Firebirds were very quick with V8 engines, but the base powerplants in the cheaper versions were always V6s. For 1996 through 2002, that engine was the good old 3.8-liter Buick pushrod V6, with ancestry extending all the way back to the 215-cubic-inch aluminum V8 that had its debut in 1961. That’s what’s in this car.

This one was rated at a pretty strong 200 horsepower and 225 pound-feet, which was more powerful than the beefiest optional V8s available in the 1982-1984 Firebirds. If you bought a 1999 Formula or Trans Am, you got a genuine 5.7-liter LS V8, rated at 305 (320 with Ram Air) horsepower and 335 pound-feet.

A five-speed manual was standard equipment in the 1999 Firebird with V6 (buyers of the V8-equipped cars could choose between a six-speed manual or four-speed automatic), and that’s what’s in this car.

This car has the optional T-top roof.

The MSRP for this car was $18,250, or about $34,828 in 2024 dollars.

The V6 version didn’t get much advertising time on TV.



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1990s, Automotive History, Crossover, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, music, SUV, Toyota

Junkyard Gem: 1996 Toyota RAV4


The Toyota RAV4 first hit Japanese streets in the spring of 1994, but its debut in the United States had to wait until early 1996. Since that time, the RAV4 has been climbing the best-seller charts, and has spent most of the last decade as the most popular new vehicle (that isn’t a Detroit pickup) here. That’s well over 7 million units sold to American car buyers over 28 years, and today’s Junkyard Gem is one of the very first RAV4s to hit our shores.

Back in 2020, I found one of the first-ever Toyota Camrys sold in the United States (build date of February 1983, a couple of months before the initial batch of Camrys arrived here), so I’m proud to have found another Toyota milestone during my explorations of car graveyard history. I’ve also documented one of the first Mitsubishi-badged pickups sold here plus one of the first few hundred Honda Civic del Sols ever built, all in Colorado boneyards.

By the second half of the 1990s, the spectacular sales success of such machines as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ford Explorer had made it clear that the future of the American road would be all about trucks, and any manufacturer who failed to provide commuter SUVs that looked tough yet rode comfortably would be doomed here. Toyota was raking in tall stacks of yen with the 4Runner, but a small unibody SUV would lure even more American buyers with a nicer ride and car-like fuel economy.

The original RAV4 was developed on a chassis that borrowed from the Corolla and the Carina (which was only sold here for a couple of years in the early 1970s; the Celica was the closest Carina relative in the United States during the middle 1990s). It was available with two or four doors and with front-wheel-drive or all wheel-drive.

Following the Japanese car industry’s tradition of applying tortured acronyms to vehicle designations (e.g., Nissan PLASMA, Subaru BRAT), RAV4 stood for Recreational Active Vehicle with 4-wheel-drive. This one has front-wheel-drive and its four doors made it more about driving to work than to recreation, but you get the idea.

It was built in Aichi Prefecture in May 1996 as a “49-state” car, not legal for new sale in California.

The engine is a 2.0-liter DOHC 3S-FE straight-four, rated at 120 horsepower. We’ve seen the 3S-FE in quite a few Camrys in this series.

The base transmission for the first two generations of U.S.-market RAV4 was a five-speed manual, and that’s what’s here. When the third-generation RAV4 appeared as a 2006 model, an automatic transmission was mandatory equipment and remains so to this day (three-pedal RAV4s are still sold elsewhere on the planet). The two-door RAV4 also disappeared after 2005.

The curb weight of the 1996 RAV4 four-door was 2,778 pounds, nearly a half-ton lighter than its 2024 descendant.

This one made it a bit past 175,000 miles during its career, which is acceptable but not anywhere close to impressive by 1990s Toyota standards. During my junkyard explorations, I’ve found a 1996 Avalon with nearly a million miles, a 1996 Camry wagon with close to 600,000 miles and a 1995 Previa with well over 400,000 miles, for example.

One of the RAV4’s claims to fame is that an electric version was one of the first production EVs sold in the United States during the modern era. The RAV4 EV was launched as a 1997 model (the same year as the GM EV1, in fact) and was sold here through 2003. Unlike what happened with the EV1, Toyota didn’t confiscate and destroy all the RAV4 EVs when their leases were up and I’ve managed to find an example in a California junkyard.

Don’t drive what your neighbor drives! The problem is that now your neighbor likely does drive a RAV4.

Toyota never has been very good at pitching the whole fun thing, but their vehicles are screwed together very well.



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1990s, american cars, Automotive History, Chevrolet, custom car, custom cars, customization, flames, Junkyard, Junkyard Gems, lowrider, music, Sedan

Junkyard Gem: Customized 1994 Chevrolet Caprice Classic LS Sedan


Customized Impalas and their Caprice siblings go back to the earliest models, and it’s inevitable that some of these machines will end up among the rows at your local Ewe Pullet. Today’s Junkyard Gem is such a car, a final-generation Caprice found in a Denver-area boneyard recently.

The very first Caprices were top-trim-level full-sized Chevrolets for the 1966 model year, pushing the Impala into the second tier on the big Chevy prestige pyramid (the Chevy Biscayne was the most affordable version in North America until being discontinued — in Canada — after 1975). The squared-off predecessor to the 1991-1996 Bubble aka Whale Caprice, known as the Box Caprice, was introduced as a 1977 model and continued in production all the way through 1990.

These cars were seen as throwbacks in their day, but plenty of Americans during the 1990s still wanted traditional big Detroit sedans with V8 engines, rear-wheel-drive and a generous helping of affordable cloth-and-vinyl luxury inside. These cars sold quite well to police departments, though Ford’s Crown Victoria Police Interceptor won the American cop-car long game.

Unlike the 1977-1990 Caprices, the 1991-1996 cars weren’t available in the United States with straight-six engines. In fact, all of the 1991-1996 Caprices had standard V8 power (except for the 1992-1993 9C6 versions, sold for taxi use only, which got 4.3-liter V6s).

This car was built with a 4.3-liter engine, but it’s the L99 small-block V8 that was the base engine for the 1994-1996 Caprice. In fact, it was used only in those Caprices. The 200-horse L99 looks just like the 5.7-liter small-block Chevrolet V8s that went into millions of other GM cars during the 1990s, so there’s no telling at a glance if this is the original one or a swap. Just to confuse parts-counter employees for decades to come, the Chevrolet 4.3-liter V6 was based on an earlier version of the small-block Chevrolet V8, and Oldsmobile offered a diesel 4.3 V6 that was three-quarters of the Olds 350 V8.

This car started out life with white paint but received a vivid teal re-spray at some point. Teal is a popular color in the SLAB and scraper worlds.

Most of the interior is gone by now, but we can see that the dash and door panels were given the teal treatment as well.

The flame job draws inspiration from the customs of early-1960s Los Angeles.

The hood is an aftermarket fiberglass unit from Glasstek in Illinois. You can still buy this cowl-induction hood today, for $764.48.

It appears that a minor engine-compartment fire singed this one.

The door handles have been shaved, another Southern California customization touch first popularized during the 1950s. My own chopped-and-lowered 1969 Toyota Corona coupe has shaved door handles, as is proper for a SoCal machine with a genuine Carson top.

Don’t want anyone to read the VIN on your dash? Glue a couple of pennies over the all-important sequence number!

Built in Texas by Texans.

After 1996, SUVs and the Lumina LTZ replaced the Caprice (and its Impala SS sibling) in Chevrolet showrooms in the United States. The Caprice name stayed alive elsewhere in the world, however, going on Holden-built sedans through the late 2010s. Sadly, those cars were badged as Chevrolet SSs and Pontiac G8s here.

You’ll find one in every car. You’ll see.

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