Some of these Junkyard Find posts result in plaintive emails (usually several months after the car has been crushed) from car owners in far-off places: “I have been looking for parts for this car for years. I am in (the Netherlands, the Maldives, the Upper Peninsula, etc.). Please send me the contact information for this junkyard so that I can have them ship me the (impossible-to-find parts).” The record-holder is this 1981 Chrysler LeBaron, which has resulted in at least a dozen emails from obsessive Malaise LeBaron restorers. I suspect this car is going to be another example of this phenomenon. So, if you found this post on Google and it’s later than, say, June 2012, this BMW has been melted down in a Chinese steel factory!
2002s really aren’t all that rare in self-service wrecking yards, since thrashed ones aren’t particularly valuable and hopeless project cars eventually get sold for scrap after a couple of decades in the back yard. I see a half-dozen Crusher-bound 2002s in such yards every year. This one is a rare automatic-transmission car. Why would any 2002 shopper have selected the slushbox?
The Europeans weren’t ready for the early-70s US-market requirement for a Fasten Seat Belt light, so they had to add afterthought-style lights like this one. It got even worse in 1974.
This car doesn’t look rusty, but it would have cost plenty to make it nice. Since it’s tough to justify spending ten grand to make a $6,000 car, the price of scrap steel pushed this never-to-be-finished project onto the tow truck’s hook.
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