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...