Pick and Pull Junk Yards -- San Diego

Earl Browning’s Junkyard, Burns, OR. (Earl in center). Located on Hwy 20 near present location of Teagues Motors.


Hi folks, during the past few years I have had more fun going to Pick and Pull Junkyards, first in San Antonio and now in San Diego. Last Tuesday I had the time to go to the foreign car junkyard on Nirvana Drive in San Diego. This is one of several yards that are clumped togehter in Chula Vista, not far from the border with Mexico.

They raised the price now to $2 to get in, but it is worth it. I spent about and hour and a half just walking around, going first to the end of the yard that has what few Porsches there are. There were two 944s and one 928, and I usually look overall the cars for any German parts that I might find useful. I then look for BMWs and Mercedes, of which there are many. For a time a number of these cars were largely unmolested, but the last two times now I am finding the cars pretty well picked over for the good stuff -- radios, gauges, entire engines, interior parts, etc.
There are also plenty of Volvos there, and of course many, many Japanese cars. The bodies are usually rust free and i always marvel and what could be done with such clean shells. Every once and a while an oddball brand appears -- last time there were two 1970s Lancias, and the shell from a early 1970s Saab. I also saw at one time a Fiat X 1/9, that was almost intact. I wish I could live down there and take it home!

I think hard while I am in these yards, usually about how cars are put together and the relationship between various units that comprise a car. There is much to learn -- and I wish I could just come with here with all my tools and piece by piece take apart a 944 engine.

In someways these cars are sad relics of a disposable society, for they were generally treated poorly, even though with care these cars usually could go on forever.