Wrecking yards - what happens next?

By: Glenn Torrens, Unique Cars magazine, Video by: Cameron Jordan, Unique Cars magazine

Date: 27.03.2023

Traditional wrecking yards are closing. Glenn Torrens looks at reasons why and offers rays of hope to keep our classic cars cruising

As with drive-ins and little corner stores, the number of traditional car-wrecking yards scattered across Oz is declining. Those paddocks covered with cars, often stacked on stilts of welded wheels, for us to pick to pieces for parts are slowly but surely disappearing.

Also shrinking is the number of the old-school wreckers closer to suburbia; those gold mines of car parts buried deep in the back-street mazes of red or blonde-brick industrial areas, where customers arrive to a greasy driveway and a ‘wotchaaftermate?’ yelled from deep within dimly lit rows of racked bits.

Rising land values add pressure on yards

Just before Christmas 2022, Northern Auto Wreckers, one of Sydney’s bigger and older yards in the western district of Londonderry, was scheduled to shut its gates after decades of selling parts from its wooded acres of cars. This business grew from behind a now-vacant petrol station site in the 1930s. Then, in the early days of car ownership, Londonderry was beyond the distance that many Sydneysiders went for holidays. Now, the site is soon to succumb to Sydney’s suburban sprawl.

Earlier in 2022, Sydney’s enormous Pick n Payless closed its gates, too. Although not quite as old as many yards (it operated for just 25 years) it was, for many of us, a terrific place to get bits. I spent plenty of time there pulling VW, Commodore and Falcon parts. Even if I didn’t need specific parts, diverting from the daily grind for an hour or so and dropping a $2 coin into the turnstile entry gate was worth it for just a wander and a wonder; a relaxing hunt for an unseen bargain.

| Read next: Project Coomadore rescue from Flynns Wrecking Yard

The enormous Flynn’s Wrecking Yard, in the southern NSW town of Cooma, is for sale. For 40 years, the owner/operator Wayne Flynn has been selling parts from the yard his dad established in the late 1950s. Wayne reckons he doesn’t want to ‘do’ another sometimes snowy Cooma winter (and quite reasonably so – the feller is 65 and wants to go somewhere warmer!) but if he doesn’t find a new owner for his business, its stock of thousands of cars, dating back to the 1930s, is at risk of being cubed.

Many older South Australian car people will remember the enormous wreckers in Port Augusta… gone. Another South Oz yard, Joyce’s Warnertown Wrecking Yard… gone. Over west, full-of-fruit yards in Bellevue, Bayswater and Pinjarra… gone. In Victoria, a big Footscray yard… gone. Other yards in other states – those that survived the demand for steel in the early 2000s – are now being closed and cleared with monotonous regularity.

Parts like these are disappearing

For many of us, the existence of these yards has been a lot more significant than just getting parts: for many of us wrecking yard visits were a teenage rite of passage. Where I grew up, as well as spending summer days jumping from gumtrees into rivers or filling our P-plated cars with mates and cruising to the beach, we entertained ourselves with visits to see what fresh messed-up cars George The Wrecker had.

"Hello young cherries!" George would greet us. It seems kinda creepy now but it was funny then. Pulling the pieces from the double-stacked stash of Toranas and Premiers and Lancers at George’s was often the lesson in how to install those bits on our own cars on driveways at home.

As adults, wandering through country wrecking yards – such as Flynn’s in Cooma – has been as much a part of The Great Aussie Road Trip as the endless search for the best local bakery pie.

Of course, many of these yards have evolved, replacing gravel, mud, welded wheel rims and grubby fingers with concrete, pallet racking, barcodes and over-the-counter service. Sure, these yards remain sources of parts, but their ways of doing business and their stock levels are built around quick turnover of fast-selling parts.

Plenty of makes and models

I doubt there will be yards with rows of FG Falcons, VE Commodores and Mazda 3s for us to pick parts from in 25 years. As time moves on, and our ‘old’ cars get even older, these old-school yards will become memories.

So why are they closing?

Many of the yards we know and love were established decades ago on cheap land in what were, then, quite distant districts. These yards sometimes sprang up simply because it was too expensive to transport freshly crashed cars or ‘not economically saleable’ local trade-ins for sale in the cities. In other words, some of these yards were little more than dumping grounds.

But those piles of cars eventually became useful. As the kids of the 1940s and early 1950s (the ‘baby boomers’) grew up, cars of the same era became those kids’ – who are now our parents and grandparents – first cars, which created demand for spare parts. Things kicked along a little more with the advent of the two-car family in the 1970s. Dad might have driven a newish ‘big three’ sedan or wagon but Mum often had something older, such as a Bug or a Morris from the 50s or 60s.

Some yards were established and remain under the ownership of people who have run the businesses all their working life; now, decades later they’re at an age where they wish to retire. A yard established by a keen 30-year-old ex-mechanic in 1970; that bloke is 83 now. Time waits for no man, and all that…

Amazing what you can stumble across

Environmental standards are also a factor. Things are much better controlled these days but it doesn’t take a degree in chemistry to realise that many of these yards, established when no one knew of or cared for environmental damage, have left a legacy of oil-tainted soil.

Most significantly, incessant suburban sprawl has put the population close to these yards and pushed-up property values. That might be good for the yard owner – his land asset is now worth big bucks – but a yard closed, its owner retired, and its land cleared and redeveloped for housing can provide nothing more for our cars.

Once a pride and joy

The great parts chase

With so many wreckers closing down, what are we to do to keep our older cars cruising? Thankfully, some of these older yards, with their stocks of older cars, remain for now. For instance, Queensland’s iconic Gold Coast Auto Wreckers – it was established in 1971 and famously has a pink Humpy Holden on its verandah – downsized several years ago but remains open. Flynn’s, although for sale, also remains as do other traditional yards across Oz.

Independent of yard closures, there are other challenges we car enthusiasts must all face, too: Number 1 is natural attrition: For many popular models, the finite numbers of cars and their components have simply been used up; it’s an inescapable fact that cars that were stacked deep at the wreckers just a decade ago – for instance, once worthless but now-cool 1980s stuff such as early Commodores and XD-XF Falcons – are almost gone and the natural laws of supply and demand mean remaining cars and parts are getting expensive.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Thankfully – and despite some boomers and gofers pining for the ‘good ol’ days’ – finding remaining parts is easier these days than at any time in history.

We don’t need to wake up at 5.00am on a Wednesday morning to buy the Trading Post for the weekly ritual of scrolling through pages of pictureless words, trying to decipher descriptions of parts for a Torana or a Hillman or P76 or whatever before finding a phone box and hoping the seller is awake and/or at home. Often, too, that didn’t guarantee a good result; sometimes a drive across town ended with disappointment: bits sold to someone else 10 minutes ago or not being as good as you hoped.

These days, the process of looking for parts is so much easier. Online car enthusiast groups are a more wide-ranging and more accessible source of parts and information than a community notice board at the local shops; you can find parts from all over the country or the world. New and second-hand parts can be bought in the palm of your hand 24/7.

Modern technologies – such as the advent of 3D printing – make tooling and manufacturing of replacement parts and panels easier than ever. Many popular parts are being recreated. In addition to the ‘big boys’ such as Rare Spares and Muscle Car Parts, many smaller businesses such as HoldCom, Ozzy Restorations, Nucom, Old Auto Rubber and Global Trim are developing and selling an increasing range of maintenance and restoration components.

On a larger scale, some car manufacturers – Mazda; Nissan; Porsche; Mercedes; Land Rover, Ford and GM in the US – are recreating parts for their iconic models from decades past. Companies such as Dynacorn Classic Bodies and British Motor Heritage are recreating popular bodyshells under licence.

GT bought this Commodore at Flynn’s

But no matter what, experienced car nuts know the value of collecting and storing parts. So, if you have a long-term project on the go, get out there and raid those wrecking yards for the parts you need before they’re all gone. That might be difficult for some of us but now, as in the past, those who put in the extra effort will be the ones who will reap the rewards…

And that’s the way it’s always been.

From Unique Cars #476, March 2023

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