THE PARTS YARD PATROL - THE BIG QUESTION - SURVIVAL?

Nick Cash

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have called anyone who told me about it a liar! I was standing in the middle of a Salvage yard in the seedy old industrial area of a major city. I had my trusty camera and camcorder in hand and I just couldn't wait to get started shooting. The scenery, to an old yard dog, was magnificent, it was resplendent with aging hulks of formerly splendid classic vehicles. It was mind bending just standing there in the middle of so much history!
But today I wasn't there to just look; I was there to find an assortment of classic vehicles. I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn't help but find everything that I was looking for within an hour. The yard was amazing, as was the old curmudgeon that owned it. A retired contractor who must be in his late 70's at the least.
As I stood in the middle of that restoration paradise, I couldn't help but feel sad! The value of every single vehicle is only $75-$100 for crush value! A yard of this size with an elderly owner can only be wasted. It can't be moved, the cost of moving is unbelievably expensive. If it is sold, it generally will be sold to an under funded wheeler dealer who will strip it of the valuable pieces and then crush the others indiscriminately to make payroll and payments. Unfortunately, the value of the yard is mostly in a few rare vehicles and the rest for parts and scrap metal value only.
Another parts yard I ran onto some time back in the northeast area, that had over 5000 rust-free classic vehicles collected from the Air Force men which drove them up there to assignments on the nearby Air Force Base, the owner told me at that time that he had enough parts to put together around a dozen 49-51 Mercury's. Unfortunately he didn't want to sell anything individually, he wanted to sell all 5000 at once! He is a farmer and the cars were on prime farmland which he needed to reclaim, so all the cars had to be moved. If it only cost $5.00 to move each car, the cost will be $25,000.00, but my guess is that it will probably run 3 to 10 times that cost!! So the yard was probably be crushed, he had already crushed around 3000 cars because the lot was originally around 8000 cars. It doesn't take a fortuneteller to predict what the future holds for that yard, as well as the other one I mentioned!
Is there a solution to this problem? I honestly don't see an easy answer! Maybe someone out there has an answer, if so speak up before it's too late!
Please don't ask for the Salvage Yard owners name, location or phone number, I have been sworn to secrecy!