Murilee Martin

The station wagon has become a bit player in the American automotive marketplace as we approach the second quarter of the 21st century, but the junkyard reminds us of a time when that type of vehicle was the choice for family hauling. Since we haven’t seen a proper big Detroit wagon in this series

Would you believe that the last time we saw a Ford Tempo in this series was seven years ago, or that we've never seen a discarded example of its Mercurized sibling, the Topaz? We'll fix that right now, with a Northern California Topaz that served as habitat for a fascinating variety of moss and lichens. I found this car at the Pick-n-Pull in the appropriately named city of Moss Landing, California. That yard visit was exceptionally productive for my pursuit of discarded automotive hi…

Murilee Martin · 3 min read When you spend much time in the Ewe Pullets of this land, as I do , you'll encounter many examples of innovative backyard engineering.

Every so often, a collection of single-model project or parts cars must leave its abode and ends up by default in a nearby car graveyard. I’ve seen this many times over my decades of junkyard crawling, and the latest is an unexpected grouping of Rover P6s in Colorado.

Murilee Martin · 3 min read I just returned from two weeks in Japan, and you'll soon see articles about everything from

Murilee Martin · 5 min read I just spent a couple of weeks in Japan , my first trip there since I wrote about the Toyota Century assembly line five years back.

One of the disappointing things about visiting Japan, from the point of view of an automotive enthusiast, is that you won't see many kei trucks older than about 10-15 years of age.

This series is about automotive history as seen in the Ewe Pullets of the world, and sometimes that means we’ll look at vehicles known for stirring up controversy. We’ve already covered discarded examples of the Edsel and the Chevrolet Corvair, and now here’s one of the only cars that could rival those two in stirring up enthusiast ire: an Audi 5000 from the era of the “Unintended Acceleration” debacle that nearly drove Audi from the North American car business.

Murilee Martin · 1 min read The most-produced motor vehicle in human history is the Honda Super Cub step-through motorcycle , full

The General dominated the American cartruck world, building Chevrolet El Caminos and their GMC-badged twins for a collective quarter-century. I used to see these vehicles regularly in car graveyards, but now they're very rare Junkyard Finds. Here's an example of the Early Malaise Era El Camino, found in a Colorado yard over the summer. Ford built Rancheros for just over 20 years, while Chrysler made Rampages and Scamps for a mere three years. Of course, all three companies built utes…