The Junkyard Gems of Doug’s Auto Parts in Marshall, Minnesota

Some owners welcome us and let us wander around unaccompanied. Others are less keen. Thankfully, Doug's Auto Parts of Marshall, Minnesota, welcomed us warmly, and yard owner, who started the business in the early 1970s, gave us as long as we wanted to explore.

This was several years ago, and we fear that the yard may since have closed its doors. It appears to have virtually no web presence, and when we tried to locate the yard on Google, the words ‘permanently closed’ appeared. If it has indeed shut up shop, we wonder what happened to this amazing collection of classics…. Let’s take a look at what we found:

The yard was actually split into two distinct parts. Firstly there was the modern area, which was off limits to the public, and of little interest to us. This place was a hive of activity, as crushers worked overtime to rid the world of late Hondas, Hyundais and such like.

And then there was the old area, where classic car enthusiasts were allowed to browse unsupervised, and hopefully find their perfect restoration project.

Behind this row of 1960s Chevrolets (from left to right: 1960, 1962 and 1964), you can see the entrance to the modern yard.

This 1952 Pontiac Chieftain convertible is a rare car, and were it in decent condition, valuable too. However, with its distressed bodywork, time-ravished interior, and rusty floor, its hopes of finding someone brave enough to restore it were minimal. Judging by the way it’s sunk into the dirt, it must have sat in this spot for decades.

We don’t confess to being experts with pre-war cars, but judging by the shape of this Ford Model A Fordor’s radiator, which once had a painted lower section, it probably hails from 1930. In other words, when Doug's Auto Parts first opened its doors in 1973, it was already a classic. The car wears 1957 South Dakota license plates, and could well have been a resident for decades.

Between October 1927 and March 1932, almost 5 million Model As rolled off the line, of which 1.16 million were built in 1930 alone.

As you can probably guess from this amazing line-up, Doug's Auto Parts specialized in the Mercury marque, and we counted more than 20 of them. The Mercury brand was created in 1938 by Edsel Ford, as a medium-priced car, effectively bridging the gap between Ford and Lincoln.

Sales slowed drastically in the 21st century, falling from 359,143 in 2000 to 93,195 a decade later. Mercury was closed down in 2011, with the final Grand Marquis rolling off the line in January of that year.

Check out the period sun visor on this fantastic 1951 four-door sedan. With an abundance of similarly aged Mercurys, it’s no wonder that this yard was well known in the custom car world.

Although this car had a lot of rust in its sills, it would definitely have made a great project for somebody.

Anyone in the market for an early 1970s Chevrolet Monte Carlo? Well, Doug’s Auto Parts had four of them to choose from. Although they weren’t in great shape, it might just have been possible to make a decent one out of the whole bunch.

Ignoring a gap from 1989 to 1994, these two-door coupes were built from 1969 to 2007, spanning six generations.

The 1942 Chevrolet was basically the same as the 1941 model, the only notable differences being a new grille and front wings. Cars built after January 1, 1942 were known as 'blackout' models, because in an attempt to conserve scarce metals they were fitted with painted grilles, belt mouldings and hubcaps.

One month later production of civilian cars stopped altogether, as assembly lines switched from cars to the tanks, planes and bombs that would help America and her allies win the Second World War. Just 254,885 Chevrolets were built that year, compared with more than 1 million in 1941.

This orange 1947 certainly stood out in a line-up of rusty Fords. The 1947 cars were similar to the previous model year, in fact to begin with they were identical. It was only after production had started that Ford started to remodel it, moving the parking lights from above the grille, and revising the exterior mouldings.

It also received a new bonnet ornament, as modelled by the car closest to the camera. Company founder Henry Ford died on 7 April, 1947, aged 83.

Nothing to see here – just a 1965 Ford Falcon convertible with a continental tyre holder, luggage rack and filled-in wheel arches… Whoever carried out this work was clearly proud of their creation, as they appear to have draped it in Christmas lights to attract maximum attention.

The car was supplied new by the Fred Jones dealership in Oklahoma, and still wears license plates from that state.

Introduced in 1958, the Chevrolet Brookwood was the four-door station wagon equivalent of the mid-range Biscayne. GM didn’t record production numbers for individual models that year, but what we do know is that some 170,000 four-door station wagons found buyers.

When this 1959 Chevrolet Impala’s windscreen was sold, it’s a pity that the hole wasn’t temporarily plugged with something. As a consequence of being open to the elements, the dashboard had started to rust, and the interior was also deteriorating fast.

From a distance the exterior looked pretty good, but up close you could see that rust had taken a hold of the wings, door and sills, and we also wonder what horrors were lurking beneath the surface. While it probably wasn’t a restoration candidate, it certainly had an abundance of great spares to offer.

This certainly grabbed our attention as we drove by, but then that’s the reason why it was perched on the container, overlooking the highway, and acting as an advertisement to passing motorists. After all, nothing says ‘we stock rare and unusual classic cars’ better than a Nash Metropolitan (although a Crosley or Henry J works equally as well).

It also shared the position with a 1980s Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

The Henry J was Henry J Kaiser's attempt to attract "less affluent buyers who could only afford a used car". In order to keep the purchase price to $1300, moving parts were kept to an absolute minimum, and early cars didn’t even have an opening boot. This meant customers had to fold the rear seat forwards in order to access their luggage.

In total 115,000 of them found buyers between 1950 and 1954. We were told that this one was built in 1951, the car’s second best-selling year.

Here’s perhaps the most famous US car of all time, the Ford Model T. Between 1908 and 1927 15 million ‘Tin Lizzies’ were sold, a record that stood until 1972, when it was overtaken by the Volkswagen Type 1 ‘Beetle’.

It never ceases to amaze us how many still survive in salvage yards, fields, barns and gardens. Ignoring a few bullet holes, what was left of this one was in pretty good shape.

And here’s another iconic US-built car with an incredibly good survival rate. Considering how popular they are on the classic car scene, it’s surprising how many unrestored examples still languish in junkyards.

Maybe this one would have been saved if it had been a Bel Air, instead of a mid-range 210 four-door sedan.

DeSoto Firedomes were fast - a V8-powered Firedome could manage the quarter mile (402 metres) in 19.1sec.

Of the 77,760 Firedomes to find buyers that year, more than half of them were four-door sedans like this; an offshoot of Chrysler, DeSoto was shut down in 1961.

It’s not often that you stumble upon a 1940 Willys in a salvage yard, especially not one as solid and complete as this example was. Willys only built 26,698 cars that year, and just a tiny fraction of them have survived.

Although undoubtedly best known for the Jeep (Willys-Overland - along with Ford – won a contract to produce them for the US Army), the Willys name appeared on cars from 1912.

Here’s another car that looked great for its age. It’s a 1962 Ford Falcon, and other than a few rust bubbles, a slightly misshapen grille and a smashed windshield, it was in fantastic condition. It was being offered as a project car, and we hope it has since been saved.

In production between 1960 and 1970, this was the first compact car built by any of the three giant Detroit car makers. Its aim was to stem the tide of Japanese and European imports, which American households were starting to buy as second cars.

With a 300 hp 6.0-litre V8 under its hood, a 1957 Buick Super four-door Riviera had a theoretical top speed of 193 km/h. It could manage 100 km/h in just under 11 seconds, and did the quarter mile (402 metres) in 18.3sec. Not bad at all for a car that tipped the scales at 1980 kg.

Although this example hadn’t turned a wheel in a couple of decades, it didn’t look like a difficult restoration project.

Had this 1950 Mercury been a two-door, it would probably have been saved a long time ago. Although it wasn’t in very good condition, and needed a new engine and bonnet, it might still have been worth buying. We wonder what happened to it…

With 293,658 sales, Mercury was the ninth most popular automobile brand in the US in 1950. A year later it would climb three places.

If you enjoyed this story, please click the Follow button above to see more like it from Autocar