Found in the Yard: The Last American Truck

Do you love strippers? Because that's what we've found today; the most stripped down of stripper model trucks Chevy offered that year and in my mind, the last real American truck. Allow me to explain.

Lest we Forget: The Malaise Era

Try finding couches like these in a Cruze!

Cars have evolved through distinct eras since their inception over 120 years ago. The Edwardian era brought the newfangled novelty of the automobile to racetracks and homes like never before. The muscle car era (1966-1974) brought us loud cars with louder graphics that binge drank Sunoco and made names like GT500, Hemi and Stingray legends on the street. The turbo era (1984-1995) brought us cleaner, more aerodynamic designs and livable fuel injection. But between these two eras is one that people oft look over. 

Found in the Yard: TURBO Edition!

What have we found today? Why it's a 1983 Renault Fuego Turbo rusting away. This car was born in the earliest days of the turbo era. Those were the days when every manufacturer was in a war not only to turbocharge their performance offerings, but to cover every conceivable surface in TURBO stickers. This rare Renault succeeds on both those fronts, but all the turbo stickers in the world couldn't save the Fuego.

Reckless Abandon

Before the insanity...

There was no way I could've known that walking into my favorite junkyard on a weekday afternoon  I would find my friends old car. Not one like it, but his actual car that he drove and loved years ago. I felt bad calling to tell him I had found his car sitting as a hulk. But not he. He was ecstatic that I found this thing and quickly went down to have a look at it.

The car in question was a 1991 Lumina Z34. Please contain your shouts of excitement. I know I know, but this one had a lovely little quad cam V6 powering it. Putting out 210 horsepower in a time Corvettes couldn't break 300 was a big deal. Naturally GM achieved this horsepower figure in the most difficult way possible. An iron block, aluminum heads, (Because screw you metallurgy) sodium filled valves and a 7,000 rpm redline made this a properly cool engine. Making this particular car more rare is the extremely rare and equally fragile Getrag 5 speed manual that backs it. Manufactured in Germany and sold in pitiful numbers in this combination, it is an exceedingly rare bird.