[rolling money pits]

wow. what a trip down memory lane this thread was. i stormed through leons many times during the early 90s. first for F body stuff, then A body. im 100% sure one of the le mans you posted i pilfered stuff from. pilfered as in took it off and paid for, lol. one was in the back corner of the yard, kind of up a hill with a couple other cars sort of set off alone. cant recall exterior color, but the inside was white, and i grabbed all the windlace, after evicting the resident bumble bees that were shaking up in the headliner.

hitting that joint in the summer was an adventure, you never knew what creature youd come across, from angry bees, pissed off rattlesnakes, skinks, all the way up to defensive heffers protecting their calves.

i always dealt with young leon, and i cannot recall who was more of a jerk, jr or sr, as folks over the years had said. i never had a problem with jr.

to the op, did you ever stomp through philbates down on the north end of the peninsula? not sure if its still around, but it was a gold mine. only problem was, george knew what he had, and asked a correspondingly appropriate price.

[Eric71T37]

Was the white-interiored A body a blue '71 LeMans Sport? I couldn't find that car where it was last time I saw it, but I did find one of its doors in another A body section.

I have never been to Philbates but thanks to another forum member I have been in contact with them this week about a future visit. The father passed away a couple of years ago and his wife and step-son are keeping it alive.

[mrennie]

Cool thread, it brings back alot of memories from when I was a teenager in the 80's and didn't yet have a car, but was always looking for something cool to buy and fix up as my first car.

Living in a small town in Northern Ontario in the 80's, there was only one yard nearby that was family run and they had around 50-60 cars at any one time, and they never crushed the old stuff until they shut down in the mid 90's and crushed it all.

I remember being allowed to walk around and look at anything I wanted, the only rules were to close the doors and hoods when done looking and not to hurt anything.

There were quite a few cool cars that were in restorable condition that back then, were just considered parts cars. I recall a 65 2 door Impala, AMC Javelin, 71 Mustang Mach 1, a few 65-66 Mustangs, and a really cool 50's Cadillac hearse that my friend and I wanted to buy and fix up for our first car but our parents nixed that idea...

Wish I had taken some pics, back then (we were 16-17) we never thought to document any of that, didn't seem important at the time.

After the work I've done on my Judge (that should have stayed a parts car), I wish I could go back in time and buy up a few of the cars from that yard that could have been much easier to restore. The Mustang Mach 1 just needed an engine, and the 65 Impala needed a front bumper and engine.