Junkyard Exploration

Every once in a while you find some pretty strange stuff sitting in the junkyard and today's example certainly fits the bill. Our vehicle here started out as a pretty standard Ford E350 Econoline cutaway van that typically is sold to third party manufacturers to be turned into cube vans or RVs. In the case of this particular van, it seemed to have ended its life as a "Hot Shot" truck. Hot Shots are typically medium-duty or one-ton trucks that pull trailers and get time-sensitive loads to their destination on time. These trucks haul loads that most freight trucks don’t want to haul since they are too small to economically haul with a large truck . It doesn’t make sense for a large trailer to carry small loads that are better off hauled by a Hot Shot. This van is certainly configured to do this type of work since it has what looked to be a very nicely appointed sleeper attached to the back of the van's cab, and there was a 5th wheel hitch installed on the van

Just when I thought they all had dissolved into piles of rust years ago I find what seems to be a fairly pristine-looking Nissan 280 ZX in the junkyard. This was always a cool looking car and the adolescent version of myself found these cars far more attractive than the Mustangs or Firebirds that my classmates had drooled over.  To me, it was the shape of the car, that long hood with the fastback back end made for a very unique shape when compared to its more square-shaped contemporaries at that time. I suppose what put me over the edge on this car was the front end, with the recessed headlights, again very different than that flat fronts that most cars had at that time. Alas with the type of sheet metal that was used in these cars, the heavy use of salt on the roads here were not very kind to these cars and they were very prone to rust out at an early age. That's why I was very excited to see that this car seemed to be in very good shape body wise. That is until I looke

The Dodge Caliber always seemed to have a bit of a reputation as basically being a "meh" car since it comes across as a really cheap vehicle with the build quality and a driving experience to match. A quick internet search of reviews for this vehicle showed a good number of reviews about these cars, the main point in most of them is that they are really good as basic transportation, built for people who may consider them as just appliances - a tool to make everyday life easier, not really made for anyone that really likes driving cars. In 2012 I was looking at replacing my 2004 Honda CRV. During my search, I did try out a 2011 Caliber since I was very intrigued by the low price on the Caliber. While it was OK to drive, I did immediately notice the abundance of hard plastic that was contained in the interior, and the engine noise was quite a bit louder than my CRV. Considering that this would be a vehicle that I would be living with for the good part of a decade, I

With the junkyard literally full of minivans from the big three North American automakers, this one definitely was a bit of an odd duck. While there were the occasional VW driving around my area, they were almost always cars like Jetta's and Passats with the occasional new Beetle tossed into the mix. You never saw a VW van roaming around, so see this particular van here was a bit of an anomaly. This is was the first year for the Eurovan to arrive in Canada and was only available here for only 10 years. While it certainly looked like a really good people carrier with lots of seating and a lot of headroom - something that a 6 footer like myself would appreciate. It did seem to be rather utilitarian in the way its interior was laided out. It certainly had a lot more hard corners and spartan creature comforts inside compared to your typical Dodge Caravan of that time. Another odd thing was that while more minivans typically came with a 6 or sometimes 4 cylinder engine, thi