Murilee Martin

Out of all the ostentatious European machinery that became wealth-flaunting signifiers for newly rich Americans during the middle 1980s, which was the cocainiest? I've found a discarded example of one of the strongest contenders for that title, now residing in a Denver car graveyard. In my opinion, the honor of Cocainiest Car of the Middle 1980s is a two-way tie between two BMWs: the E24 L6 and the E23 L7. I've been looking for L6s and L7s in the boneyards since I started doing th…

Stay up to speed with stories written by drivers, for drivers. Get automotive news, DIY tips, market trends, in-depth car profiles, and more right in your email inbox.

I'm always happy to find obscure special-edition vehicles during my junkyard travels, the rarer the better. Today, our Junkyard Find is one of just 2,821 Freedom Edition XJ Cherokees sold for the 2000-2001 model years, now residing in a car graveyard near the Tesla factory

Stay up to speed with stories written by drivers, for drivers. Get automotive news, DIY tips, market trends, in-depth car profiles, and more right in your email inbox.

About a year ago, I found a U.S.-market 1999 Subaru Legacy wagon with right-hand-drive and 431,702 miles on its odometer in a Denver car graveyard. I thought it would be quite a while before I found another, but then I found this '91 in a junkyard in Carson City, Nevada. You'll find some interesting vehicles in the junkyards of the high desert around Reno and Lake Tahoe. Just at this single walk-through at the Carson City PnP, I photographed one of the first 1,000 Honda CRXs ever b…

Stay up to speed with stories written by drivers, for drivers. Get automotive news, DIY tips, market trends, in-depth car profiles, and more right in your email inbox.

It took until 2022 for me to find a Nissan Leaf in a self-service car graveyard, and since that time discarded Leaves have become commonplace in such places (at least in California). I knew the Fiat 500e wouldn't be far behind, and I was right. This first-year 500e now resides in a Denver self-service junkyard.

Stay up to speed with stories written by drivers, for drivers. Get automotive news, DIY tips, market trends, in-depth car profiles, and more right in your email inbox.

The last time we saw an IHC vehicle in this series was all the way back in 2020, when we admired a 1959 Metro-Mite step van at the Denver U-Pull-&-Pay. Today, we're returning to the very same boneyard and one of the very last full-size IHC pickups ever built. The International Harvester Corp. began selling light trucks in 1907 and continued building them until the final 1980 Scouts rolled off the line. IHC had a pickup version of the Scout known as the Terra, which stayed in produc…

Stay up to speed with stories written by drivers, for drivers. Get automotive news, DIY tips, market trends, in-depth car profiles, and more right in your email inbox.