Unicorns: the rarest cars we’ve ever spotted in American junkyards

While we know we’re never going to uncover a forgotten-about Ferrari 250 GTO or an abandoned Aston Martin DB4 Zagato, there are still plenty of rare cars lurking in salvage yards. And what’s more, because scarcity doesn’t always equate with value, many can be rescued for not a lot of money. Here follows a selection of some of our more unusual US junkyard finds.

This 1942 Cadillac ambulance is the perfect example of an ultra-rare car with very little value. Despite being hand built by master craftsmen – in this instance by the employees of coachbuilder S&S – professional cars like this just don’t have much collector appeal.

Of course if it was a 1959 Cadillac it would be a very different story, and would no doubt have been rescued and turned into yet another Ghostbusters replica.

While Ford’s Edsel brand is undoubtedly the most famous example of an automotive flop, the blue oval’s Merkur marque was even less popular. During the three years that Edsels were sold (1958-1960), some 118,000 of them found buyers.

In comparison, in the four years that Merkur was available in the US (1985-1989), just 48,000 of these German-built Fords were sold. Of the two models available, the XR4Ti (a slightly modified Ford Sierra XR4i), was the most popular, with 26,000 crossing the Atlantic.

Just 4200 people were prepared to hand over the $5945 needed to buy a 1960 Lincoln Premier four-door saloon hardtop in 1960, which made them an unusual sight on the highways. Of course they’re considerably rarer today, and this is the first example that we’ve uncovered in a salvage yard. But unfortunately this one is unlikely to ever be saved. It has been parked in a forest for decades, and is suffering from terminal tin-worm.

If you live in Serbia, you’ll think we’ve taken leave of our senses for including a Yugo in this listing. But while there may still be plenty of them trundling around in parts of Europe, they’re rarer than rocking horse manure in the US. 140,000 of these Zastava Motors-built creations were sold Stateside between 1985 and 1992. However, they were renowned for being extremely cheap but also poorly built, unreliable, and generally an embarrassment to their owners and most had been crushed by the mid 1990s.

Incredibly Arizona’s Desert Valley Auto Parts still has two of them, including this 1988 example with a $1200 price tag.

Fewer than 15,000 1966 Pontiac Catalina convertibles were built, and with decent ones fetching tens of thousands of dollars, it’s unusual to find one languishing in a salvage yard. Sadly, this one appears to be too rotten to be saved, so will no doubt never be rescued from Old Car City in White, Georgia.

In 1954 Cadillac supplied just 1611 commercial chassis to US bodybuilders for conversion into limousines, ambulances, hearses and flower cars. Yet despite being incredibly rare, Idaho-based L&L Classic Auto only wants $5500 for this S&S-built hearse. What other hand-built classic, of which only a few examples exist, can you buy for this sort of money?

What Thatcher, Arizona-based Valley Auto Wrecking lacked in quantity, it certainly made up for in quality, as we discovered on our visit several years ago. The most unusual resident was this 1955 Packard Clipper. Packard only sold 55,247 cars in 1955, making it the 14th most popular domestic marque that year, and of those just 8309 were Clippers.

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Crosley manufactured microcars from 1939 to 1952. Its pint-sized cars, with their frugal fuel-sipping ways, appealed to motorists on a budget, and in total 84,000 were built. This station wagon, which resides at Jim’s Vintage Automotive of Mountain Home, Idaho, appears to be a 1948 example. Although they were never manufactured in huge volumes, they have a reasonably good survival rate, due to their novelty value. That said, you’ll be searching for a long time to find another in a salvage yard.

Here’s a great example of how a car’s rarity has no bearing on its value. While we appreciate that 1986 six-door Cadillac limousines aren’t to everyone’s taste, surely someone will pay Texan salvage yard CTC Auto Ranch the bargain price of $2495 to rescue this rust-free example? The coachbuilder is Armbruster Stageway of Fort Smith, Arkansas.

We would be very surprised if this 1958 Studebaker President has survived a recent cull at the South Dakota junkyard we found it in. It’s one of only 5000 Presidents that were sold that year, and the chances of the yard finding anyone looking for parts for such an unusual car are pretty remote. For this reason, sadly it’s probably worth more dead than alive.

Of the 11,597 DeSoto Adventurers sold in 1960, just 3,092 were two-door hardtops like this. We would like to bet that the number of survivors are in the low double digits, which makes this example one of the rarer cars that we’ve photographed.

The Adventurer, which was built between 1956 and 1960, was DeSoto’s top-of-the-range model.

We bet you could count the surviving 1961 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight eight-passenger limousines on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite its unicorn status, Jim’s Vintage Automotive was only asking $3500 for this Cotner-Bevington-built masterpiece. That seems incredibly good value, considering that the bodywork is solid, the driveline is complete, and the interior is pretty good too.

Despite going down in history as one of the biggest automotive sales flops of all time, a surprisingly large number of Edsels still crop up in salvage yards, which would indicate that they have a relatively high survival rate. That said, this is the only 1959 Villager we’ve ever spotted. These were the lowest trim level of all the Edsel station wagons, and only 7820 were built.

Imperial was a marque in its own right between 1955 and 1975, and competed directly with Cadillac and Lincoln. However, during the 21 years, the Chrysler-owned brand never once outsold either of its rivals.

While Cadillac found 121,778 buyers in 1958, only 16,101 people wanted an Imperial. Of them, just 1039 opted for a LeBaron, and they’re rarely seen today.

Seeing as Chrysler pulled the plug on Desoto way back in 1961, it’s very rare to find one in a salvage yard. It’s even more unusual when the car in question is a 1957 Fireflite Sportsman hardtop. Of the 28,430 Fireflites to find buyers, less than 7217 were Sportsman hardtops. The car resides in L&L Classic Auto of Wendell, Idaho.

Roswell, New Mexico is known the world over for the unidentified flying object that supposedly crashed on a nearby ranch in 1947. While tourists flock to the town to check out the museum, we made a beeline for A1 Auto Recycling instead. Sadly the yard no longer exists, but hopefully somebody saved this rare 1948 Studebaker convertible from the crusher, after all only 8000 were built.

This exceedingly rare DeSoto Deluxe Coupe was spotted in Oakleaf Old Cars of Hartford, South Dakota. While it’s hard to identify its exact year of manufacture from this angle, it definitely rolled off the line between 1946 and 1948. Fewer than 2000 of them were built during this three-year period, and only a tiny proportion have survived.

Buick built 562,507 cars in 1967, which made it the US’s fifth most popular domestic brand by volume. Of those, just 2276 were Wildcat convertibles, which makes them super rare today. They’re also quite valuable, which is why we were surprised to discover this one in a Colorado salvage yard. Although it’s complete, the tattered ragtop has been letting in the elements for many years, and the interior has suffered as a consequence.

During its short three-year production run (1965 to 1967) only 17,414 AMC Marlins were built. This 1967 example is the scarcest of the lot, with just 2545 finding buyers. The poor sales were enough to convince AMC to confine its distinctively-styled two-door fastbacks to the history books.

In more than three decades of searching through US junkyards, we had never found a British-built Hillman Minx. That is until we arrived at Desert Valley Auto Parts’ Casa Grande site, which has no less than two of them. The pair appear to be 1958 examples, and it looks like both have been fire damaged. Given their scarcity, we wonder whether they once belonged to the same collector.

Although 19,000 Hillmans were exported to the US in 1958, very few survive today.

Here’s another unusual Brit – a Ford Thames Van. Built in England between 1957 and 1965, it was available as a panel van, pickup and minibus. Although they sold well in their domestic market, with 187,000 leaving the factory, very few of the Thames 800 and Thames Freighter export models made it to the US.

Whoever owned this one clearly struggled to find spare parts, hence the homemade wooden bumper.

This 1944 Four Wheel Drive (FWD) SuCOE is one of 2700 4x4 6-tonne trucks built for the US Army Ordinance Department. There is every chance that this particular vehicle saw active service in Europe during the Second World War. Although it’s missing its driveline, grille and body, it has retained the machine gun turret hole in its roof.

Located in Jim’s Vintage Automotive of Mountain Home, Idaho, it could be yours for $3500.

This 1952 Dodge Coronet Sierra four-door station wagon immediately grabbed our attention, and not just because it has a doll trying to escape from the rear window. No, the reason why we were keen to point our camera at it was because of its scarcity. Just 4000 of them were manufactured.

Checker Marathons are rare enough these days, but this is in a different league altogether. It’s a Checker Superba, which was built between 1959 and 1963, and predated the Marathon. We aren’t sure what year this one was made, but what we do know is that in its first full year of production, just 1050 were built.

This ex-cab spent most of its working life in Roswell, New Mexico, but it retired decades ago.

We have literally hundreds of pictures of Triumph TR7s, Spitfires and MGBs in US salvage yards, but instead here’s a far rarer British import. It’s an Austin A55 Cambridge, but was known in the US as a Cambrian, seeing as Plymouth was already using the Cambridge name. Having been fire damaged, and shot at, this particular example doesn’t have a whole lot going for it, and isn’t likely to earn a cent for owner Jim Hines of Jim’s Vintage Automotive.

In 1968, a decade after Toyota and Datsun entered the US market, Subaru arrived with its little 360 car. In spite of the “cheap and ugly” marketing slogan, some 10,000 Americans handed over the $1300 needed to drive one out of the showrooms. Thanks to the car’s tiny 360cc engine (which gave it its name), the top speed was only 60mph, and getting to even 50mph took 38sec.

When did you last see one, let alone three of them?

The Japanese weren’t the only ones exporting micro cars to the US. Although the East German-built Lloyd LT500 actually sold quite well, and successfully stole customers from Crosley, Henry J and the Nash Metropolitan, they’ve all but disappeared now. Incredibly though, Oakleaf Old Cars has two of them, a station wagon (left) and a van.

In 1958, the Edsel’s first model year, there were no less than seven model names and 18 variants. The Citation was the flagship model, and the second worst seller of the lot. Of the 9299 Edsel Citations built in 1958, more than half of them (5588) were four-door hardtops like this. The rarest of the lot that year was the Bermuda station wagon, which found just 779 buyers.

How’s this for an oddity? It’s a 1956 Clipper Custom. For one year only Clipper ceased being a Packard and became a marque in its own right. This was a conscious decision to prevent the entry-level car from damaging Packard’s image as a luxury car brand.

But the plug was pulled at the end of the year when Packard’s Detroit factory closed. Only 18,482 Clippers were sold, 8708 being four-door Customs like this.

1957 was the last year that Nash cars were produced, but despite innovations like America’s first four-beam headlamp system, sales were pitiful. Just 10,330 left the showrooms, giving the marque a pathetic 0.06% market share. What you are looking at here is an Ambassador four-door Custom saloon, which at 5627 total sales, was easily the marque’s best-seller.

This example is remarkably complete, right down to original wheel trims and optional Continental boot-mounted spare tire.

With the front half of the car missing, it’s difficult to accurately identify this classic Jaguar. Our best guess is that it’s a Mk VII M, which was built from 1954 to 1956. If we’re correct, then it’s one of just 10,061 built.

The Mk VII was the first Jaguar saloon to sell in large numbers in the US, with buyers appreciating the 3.4-litre, six-cylinder engine, which also powered the desirable Jaguar XK120.

It might look like a hopeless wreck now, but back in 1971 this Cadillac Series 75 Fleetwood was the height of luxury and opulence. With a $12,000 price tag, it was almost twice the price of a Sedan de Ville. To put this into perspective, an average family income was $10,290 in 1971. It’s no wonder that sales volumes were in triple figures.

The car was photographed at the entrance to Desert Valley Auto Parts’ Black Canyon City site.

This Henry J clearly hasn’t moved in a very long time. It was found in Old Car City, undoubtedly one of the greatest vintage salvage yards in the US. We were told by one of the guys working in the yard that it’s a 1952 Vagabond, which means it’s one of 15,900 built.

These entry level cars were severely lacking in creature comforts, with tail lights, reversing lights, a heater and even an opening boot lid all being options.

We challenge you to find another 1953 Packard Cavalier in a junkyard. Not only is it a rare beast, with only 10,779 manufactured, but it’s in great condition too. These four-door saloons, which had a $3234 asking price, were only in production for two years (1952-1953).

It was photographed in Roswell’s A1 Auto Recycling, which no longer exists. Before it closed its doors, an auction was held, with cars that failed to sell heading to the crusher. We really hope that it found a new home.

The Sedan Delivery accounted for 0.3% of Chevrolet’s 1959 total production, with only 5266 hitting the highways. This light commercial vehicle, which was based on a station wagon but without the rear windows, shared the Biscayne’s poverty-spec trim.

In good condition these fetch big bucks, so we expect that it has since been rescued from Georgia’s legendary Old Car City.

In 1958 the USA was in a nasty recession, and DeSoto sales suffered as a result. In the preceding year the marque managed a healthy 126,514 registrations, but in 1958 sales dived to just 49,445. Of those, only 7646 were Firesweep four-door saloons like this. Sadly the writing was on the wall for DeSoto, and sales continued to plummet. The marque would disappear altogether in 1961.

This 1963 Cadillac hearse is a three-way model, meaning it could be loaded and unloaded via the side rear-hinged doors, as well as through the tailgate. We suspect the coachbuilder was Superior Coach, but we can't be sure.

With fewer than 2500 Cadillac hearses and ambulances being built in 1963, this is one of the rarest vehicles at Oakleaf Old Cars.

But, because of the stigma attached to the job it was built to do, and the subsequent limited appeal amongst collectors, its scarcity has little correlation with its value.

Willys-Overland’s final passenger car was the Willys Aero. Overshadowed and outsold by the Jeep, just 91,377 examples rolled out of its Toledo, Ohio factory between 1952 and 1955. Judging by the split windscreen, this South Dakota example appears to be an early one.

Five years after production ended, the tooling was shipped to Brazil, where incredibly the car would soldier-on for a further 11 years.

This Cadillac Fleetwood Imperial four-door limousine appears to be a 1952 model, which means it’s one of 800 built. Sadly this one has been unloved for far too long, and has suffered as a consequence. Rust has taken a hold of the underside, and the missing glass has resulted in the interior being badly damaged.

With the price of scrap metal so high at the moment, the 4734 lb giant might even be worth more crushed.

How’s this for a wonderful collection of automobiles? Which would you like to take home? For us it’s the two-door 1958 Studebaker Champion closest to the camera, which is one of only 1,455 built.

Although the Idaho climate has been kind to the bodywork, the missing rear window has played havoc with the interior. L&L Classic Auto of Wendell, Idaho is asking $5500 for this unusual classic.

You wouldn’t expect us to include a mass-produced Ford saloon in a compilation of unusual cars, but then this isn’t just any Ford. What we have here is a rarely seen 1942 model. Production was halted in February 1942 to make way for war production. Consequently, just 160,000 cars were built up to that point, making 1942 the lowest production year for the company since 1910.

Here’s another Ford that’s worthy of inclusion in this collection. It’s a 1959 Fairlane 500 Skyliner, which featured a retractable Hide-Away Hardtop. Despite being only the second car in the world to feature a retractable metal roof (the first being a 1930s Peugeot), it didn’t sell well, and this is one of only 12,915 built in 1959.

This 1958 Studebaker Commander was one of the more unusual residents of a Colorado salvage yard we visited a few years ago. Seeing as just 6771 people were prepared to hand over $2378 to buy one, they were a rare sight back in the day, and are like hen’s teeth today.

It’s almost as if someone has been polishing the chrome on this 1964 Mercury Park Lane Breezeway hardtop saloon, such is the way it gleams in the Idaho sunshine. Only 2420 buyers parted company with the $3413 needed to secure a brand new one, and very few exist today.

Arizona’s Desert Valley Auto Parts has this 1966 Buick Electra 225 convertible parts car in stock at its Black Canyon City location. It seems a shame that it’s not being offered as a project car, after all it appears to be solid, and rather desirable too. Only 7175 of these were built.

Between 1957 and 1975, close to 4 million Fiat 500s were produced. So why have we included it in this collection of rare cars? Well, for starters, they’re far rarer in the US than Europe; indeed it seems only 300 were ever sold in America. But more importantly, this is a desirable 1960 Nuova 500 Sport. The Sport models featured a more powerful engine (boosted to a heady 21 hp, up from just 13 hp), and two-tone livery.

Parking a car in a forest does it no favours at all. Damp leaves accumulate in the crevasses, and with the sun unable to penetrate the foliage, rust quickly sets in. Remarkably this 1947/48 Kaiser’s bodywork still appears to be quite solid, but you can bet the floor resembles swiss cheese.

In total 160,000 Kaisers were sold during this two-year period, but their survival rate wasn’t great.

L&L Classic Auto had the foresight to store this desirable and extremely rare 1953 DeSoto Firedome V8 convertible under cover. Apparently it’s a runner, or at least it was when it was driven into the barn 30 years ago. It’s free of corrosion, and other than a few missing bits of trim, is pretty much complete.

The car has a hefty $16,000 price tag, but then with only 1700 built, where are you going to find another one?

While Renault and Peugeot had moderate success in the US, fellow French manufacturer Citroën found it far more difficult to penetrate the North American market. Consequently, while nearly 4 million 2CVs were sold worldwide, just a tiny number ever crossed the Atlantic.

In other words, this early ‘ripple bonnet’ example, is one of the rarest cars featured here. One of the reasons why the 2CV sold so badly in the US was that buyers deemed them too slow and unsafe on interstate highways mostly full of vast and powerful domestically-built cars.

Desert Valley Auto Parts of Black Canyon City has this highly unusual 1979 Chrysler 300 two-door hardtop for sale. Basically a souped-up Cordoba, this limited edition car has a 195bhp V8 under its bonnet. All of them were finished in white, and had distinctive red leather interiors.

Considering that only 4000 were sold, the $5500 price tag is easily justified.

British automotive journalist Will Shiers has been photographing abandoned American cars for 35 years. He has visited all 50 states on his tin-hunting trips, exploring barns, fields, deserts, ghost towns and salvage yards, while searching for hidden treasures.

Will has been contributing to car magazines for three decades, and is the author of Roadside Relics - America’s Abandoned Automobiles.