What Happened To Car Breakers Yards? - The Rise and Decline 

I spent many hours at weekends climbing the stacked cars at breakers yards. Crawling through a car creaking on the ones below it, as you unbolt the parts needed. Probably was one of the best forms of recycling that has now been stopped, due to health and safety concerns. It was also fun seeing how many older models of vehicles you could find.

I live in Alicante in Spain. There are dozens of breakers yards here, some of which allow you to walk around and take parts off yourself. Very few of the cars have any rust at all. Mostly scrapped for engine, transmission or electrical issues. Or because of scrappage schemes which are well loved over here

Roger Windleys scrap yard at Tattershall, Lincolnshire was the place for me and my Dad in the 70s and 80s.

Great little documentary. So much better than how this would have been done on TV. Well done and thank you.

Me and my pal, would spend hours down our local, we got to know the lads who did car breaking side well. So it was like buying a round a drinks, every time we bought parts. Our local sunderland metals, Used to have the early 90s backwards up the top of the hill. We would go up there and we would be amazed to see the gems up there that had been just brought in. Laugh was none were accident damaged either, but may have been sitting on a driveway or in a garage. We did see a mint Triumph Acclaim, and a mk2 astra cabby too. We were deeply saddened when the owner decided to sell up to EMR metals, which put an end to a good run in picking parts for our cars at the time. Another local one has just closed down about 2 years ago there, that one was old school too, where they would stack them 3 tier high. But from what i was told recently, there was a death in the family who owned it. So that one ended up going into the history books also. Speaking of the saxo, i remember taking one of the lads to a local salvage yard, he was needing a few bits for the front end of the 106 GTi he had. We saw a row of saxos in, and not one had the standard rear lights in! This was back in 2011 /2012, how times did change in that 10 years! Saxo was car to have in the late 90s and 00s, Some of the lads i went to school with had them as 1st cars. Now its stated that those could be in the brink of been extinct on the roads so i have read. I still rock a 306 too, but again finding yards with cars of that era now, with one in, will be very hard to come by, most of those again like the saxo, were binned off back in the mid 00s and early 2010s. Metros again i remember 20 years ago having my pick of those! but in 2008 when i decided to build a fast one, what a fuck on, trying to get parts. As most had been bailed through years prior. No way would i be able to build another one again, parts are just not there anymore or the yards. It would mean buying a donor metro, again a shed goes for 2k from what i have seen, a massive jump from £180!

hit and miss here in Australia nowadays. Back when i got my license in the 1990s if your car broke you packed up a bag of tools, went to the wreckers with some friends, got the bits you need, fix it and for about 40 bucks including the cost of the beer for you and your mates and your car is all fixed up after a fun day hanging out. There was a real genuine sense of accomplishment with that as you could fix the car yourself with some trial and error and having good time with your mates working together and helping out to fix each others cars. I guess we were kind of lucky back then as there were not that many different brands of cars for sale and you could always find what you're after. I still drive a 25 year old Aussie car and for the most part can track down the bits that i need which is a win. I guess the perception of owning a car now has changed as well too as the attitude seems to be 'oh no the fan belt broke.... time to get a new car' and the pride of ownership and DIY is becoming lost. it is kind of like the mobile phone culture of 'oh no i only have 64 GB of storage on my phone for selfies, that is not going to cut it, time to get a 256 GB phone'.

I'm 68 and I love to roll round the yard ❤

Not there no more but wideopen salvage and metals . Even had a bait van serving the best brekkke stottie ever. Gone now but we still have asnu in seaton Delaval wich is a cracking place

As a kid in the early 80s I always used to go down the scrapper with me dad, dad always liked buying wreckers and doing them up and that would be the family car for a couple years until he found another smasher to do up, the best one we ever had was an sri astra it had been hit in the side I remember dad out the garage to god knows what time welding in panels that car used to go like shit off a shovel as he would say. When I bought my first car as a teen I was always at the scrappers buying bits for my fiesta MK1, then with later cars ford Sierra mrk1 and Mondeo mrk2, I remember finding an ST24 mondeo there with all the walnut dash leather seats, side skirts and spoiler I soon had that out took me a week to strip that car I even had the V6 out of it too. lol lovely my Mondeo was very nice inside and looks the dogs bollox by the time I'd finished with it best car I ever owned, I only stopped going to the scrap yard when I had me mr2 turbo as round my way mr2s were very rare in scrappers and if any turned up they were never dumped they were sold on again so I had to get used bits online, I still go down the scrapper from time to time to get bits for me combo van but not so much these days my days.

7:48 go to an american u-pull. I do this basically every time i visit any u pull near me, the muddy water couldnt be more accurate lol.

I passed my test in 1989 had a p reg mk 2 escort 1.3 gl dropping to bits went in local scrap yard needed a prop shaft the car i took it off was better nick than mine outside 😢lol

Smith's of Bloxham that was an epic scrap yard. No idea if its still there.

My scrapyard used to have plenty of Escorts’ Austins’ Rover’Talbot Simca ‘ lancia Renault’ Fso ‘ Old fiats ‘ Zastava and so on . Nobody’s fighting to keep them going sadly . Influencers are pushing electric 🙄😮🤦‍♂️

The scrapyard part of haynes of east challow , Oxfordshire has been closed since the c virus.......... It was heaven on earth 🌎

It’s all Authorised Treatment Facilities these days which have to issue a CoD in line with government legislation and shred the vehicles but it’s a shame to see those airfields still full of some really classic vehicles, none of which can ever be returned to the roads

Bill Way Cardiff used to pin the boys up with one hand and rifle the boy's pockets for screws light bulbs n any other things they forgot to pay for while shaking them with the other. . But not for me. I don't remember how but because of my Dad I didn't have to pay for anything. 😊

hoppers in birmingham closed perminantly

Even some of those 'scrap cars' must be worth a small fortune now. Maybe even rebuildable ?!............Mind I guess this picture is decades old.

The smell of gear oil, the floor made of gravel, mud and oil, the owner with a hat that appeared to be made of leather and oil. The way he lit the tiny bit of roll up cigarette in his mouth with a huge cutting torch. The crumbling buildings, the old blue crane, and the fascinating range of vehicles. Such nostalgia. If you needed a major part of any value the guy would fire up the crane to get the car down from the stack. Health and safety was known as common sense or simply being careful. No hi-viz or hard hats, I climbed around these cars as a kid. Grippy shoes were a must especially in the wet.

This is recycling at its finest . My whole career in the motor trade was based on the importance of these yards .

Governments don't want you keeping old cars going!

Luckily I still can walk around my local yard and it is so good for my mental health. I can escape for an hour or two and not worry about anything in the world.

Bloody Hell!!scrapyards...now you're talking lol, number of times I used to go to finish off a project because couldn't afford main dealer prices and the adventure in actually looking for what you wanted and spotting other things was amazing....wow I'd forgotten the fun had in scrapyards .. 🌟🎊🥳🤩

I remember them stacking the cars four and five high before the health and safety went crazy and getting bits from the inside of an old herald at the top and being careful as the car was rocking. It wasn't uncommon to see a car that had fallen off the top and down the gap.

I worked in a scrap yard 3 times. I wasnt paid, but was there from opening til closing every day. I loved being there but there is not a lotto do except see to customers and direct them to where the models of cars are. There is the chains to put on the cars to lift them and to strip parts off, like wheels, batteries, starters and alternators. The "office" was a caravan or a campervan when one came in. The law changed so cars could no longer be stacked more than two high. We used to stack them 3 or 4 high. If customers wanted a large item, like an engine, gearbox, exhaust etc thay was too heavy or a car on top of another, the crane was started up and lifted the car out so it could be worked on. We stripped cars that were gong to be crushed. Some cars I never wanted crushed but never had the money to buy them from the scrapyard at the tme. They were great days for me and happy memories. Unfortunately, the scrapyards where I live were all told to shut down as hte land was needed for building on. The council forced all scrapyards to close. A couple went on to stripping cars in a workshop and selling parts off the shelf. But after time, ebay was hte way to go for buying used car parts asd people were stripping hteir own cars as they would end up morethan just selling it. A lot of rear wheel drive cars and vans etc were sold to overseas buyers (mainly Africa) as they had reps coming over and buying trucks full of scrap cars, as long as there was an engine, gearbox and running gear on them still. They would also buy hundreds of engines too. Sometimes as many as would fit in to and artic tipper trailer or a shipping container. I last worked in a scrapyard back in 1997, First time I helped out at a scrap yard was in 1976. Wr as kids used to "play" in the scrapyard when we were young teens. We would jump over the fence on Sunday afternoons. Spent all afternoon in there, just craeling through the cars and see what was in there.

I miss the ability to walk around a scrapyard looking for bits for cars I owned and things I didn't. I remember taking all the walnut veneer trims from every Rover I came across, I had tons of it, probably worth a few quid now.

We should all pull together and start our own yard. We considered these as recycling yards during the 70’s 80’s 90’s and so on . Talking about it will hopefully pull some of us together 👌

I live in Tyne and Wear England.. Car breakers up here were dirty, oily muddy places with every make jumbled together. You needed a boiler suit and wellys just to go in them. In the late 80's I was in Suffolk and needed an old Leyland mini engine. I was directed to a yard in Dedham, Essex. What a revelation, the alleyways were mown grass. the cars stacked neatly and in rows of all the same model, no oil.mud, junk or trash anywhere. I have often tried to find it again but I expect it's a housing estate now.

Motor factors hated them because people would use good used parts instead of putting a brand new part on their 15 year old car. I used to trawl them for tuning parts, many a weber carb has been sourced from a scrappy to improve an Escort or Cortina and make it breathe better. The environment agency - or gestapo as I like to call them - have made recycling virtually impossible across the board. Electronics recycling used to be common place, now everything gets shipped to Africa. I used to live near Aldershot, Hants, we had Bayliss in Normandy, Blackbushe motors, and several others that I don't recall the names of but there was one on the Odiham bypass, one in North Camp and one in Aldershot itself. Every year there were parts recovered from those sites that kept tens of thousands of other vehicles on the road.

Albert Looms in Derby is the best scrapyard near me. They let you walk round and pick off parts yourself, you just pay at the end. I'm sure they'd let you film, they even have an online inventory page, so you can see whats in.

No point in car salvage yards anymore, most young people wouldn’t know how to use a spanner, let alone remove & replace a part, also modern cars are all too technical to repair, you need diagnostic equipment to find a fault

Hainford Hall at Hainford just outside Norwich was a legendary site! Not only was there a huge selection outside to pour over, the semi derelict hall itself was filled with already removed parts in rooms that you could wander round and search for particular parts, already for specific vehicles and rooms with stocked in order of components, such as starter motors alternators etc! Brilliant place, I miss such site! There were several around Norwich and surrounding areas, sadly all gone now!

I relate to you saying working at a scrapyard is a fantasy job. My first full time job out of university was as a purchaser for a large chain of self-service scrapyards in Canada. The job itself was quite a dream! Lots of interesting cars, I once purchased eight 80s and 90s BMWs. One of them did get saved thankfully, the rest lived on as parts. Eventually though I realized the upper management was too corporate and I couldn't stand working for them anymore, so I left. Starting a used car dealership now and am hoping to eventually own a scrapyard in the future though!

I feel bad for you guys in the UK. In the US, junkyards are booming, as the average age of a car on the road is in the teens, and new cars are too expensive, unreliable, and difficult to work on. I'm currently driving a truck that'll be 25 years old in April. We also don't have crazy laws when it comes to junkyards, and some of them even sell whole cars to the general public

I have noticed this decline in the last few decades. Back in the 90's I had a mk1 Popular plus fiesta and I needed a gear knob. My brother took me to a breakers near Liskeard in Cornwall in around 1995 and I remember climbing through piles of cars all stacked. I found a Gear knob from an xr2i and it had red details and stitching. I think I was charged a fiver. That yard was gone by the millennium.

Many a happy Saturday afternoon digging around the scrap yards!

Fortunately, scrap yards are booming in the U.S. The cost of repairing cars involved in minor crashes where air bags deployed has created a huge demand for parts from these cars as people find they can rebuild their car for a lot less than buying another car. And the internet makes is soo easy to find parts now. I needed a seat belt for my 30 year old Suburban, and not only could I find one, I could find it in the color I wanted.

Congrats on a super upload, really enjoy your vids, I loved going to scrapyards in the early 80s, back then you'd often see the Rover P6 bonnets and boots neatly stacked as ally scrap. Best wishes to yourself,family,friends and fellow viewers.

really enjoyed this, loved seeing all those Rovers, they are very rare where I live and usually in a yard since spares are relatively dear and have to be shipped in

A.A.looms (uncle Alberts) in Derby was my favorite, got a complete front suspension for my HB viva there in 1979.

My good friend of 55 years and former boss is in his 70th year in the wrecking yard business. He started in 1953 at 11 years old scraping cars and at 81 years old still runs his business 5 days a week. He has two 1940 Dodge trucks he bought in the late 1950's for his business and still uses them daily. A 1940 Dodge one ton flatbed for hauling scrap and a 1940 Dodge 3/4 ton converted into a tow truck that has hauled thousands of cars and trucks. Both still have flathead 6 cylinder engines and 6 volt systems. He has a 1947 Dodge 5 ton he bought in 1969 that he hauls car bodies on to a bigger scrapyard weekly. It also has a large flathead 6 cylinder engine. His crane truck is a 1937 Chevrolet 1-1/2 ton he bought in 1964 and still uses daily. His large crane he just bought about 10 years ago is powered by a Chrysler flathead straight 8 cylinder engine and is used daily. No modern machines at this yard. He has a large Ross forklift year unknown and a Cletrac bulldozer from the 1930's that he has had for appox 50 years. He has had a few people work for him over the years, but most of the time he has done it himself. He does mostly antique cars and trucks and a few modern vehicles. This yard is located in American Canyon California and is called Brian's Salvage and Junk.

I worked in a breakers yard from early 70s to the mid eighties,this video was good to watch for me,they were the best years of my working life,I was 26,when I started,,I am now 70,and still have friends that I made thou working there,I don’t know if you know it ,but it is still going today,J C Autobreakers Dartford,and runs alongside the M25.They worked with a lot of insurance company’s as well,so I had a different car to drive every month 😁,I must of drove almost every car of the day I would think,it was like our own little world up there,and not like a job,thanks for the memories.

Two self service scrapyards of my past are Silverlake Autos near Southampton and the UK famous Charles Trent in Poole. During my college years as an apprentice engineer, we used to visit one of the two breakers yeards at least once a week. Ripping cars to pieces to not only service our own needs, but also just for the experience of removing certain parts from the same model. - givig a great working knowledge of the cars we drove. Lunchtime on day release usually invovled a quick trip there to buy nuts, bolts and trim pieces. Leading to an ample supply to keep our old, abused cars looking younger and tidier. Also very handy when you sheared a bolt or found one not fitted in the first place. Eventually I used to fund the purchase of my professional work tools through the repair of other peoples cars or the sale of parts, which had come from these breakers. Some awesome memories that are a huge part of me being the multi skilled aircraft engineer I am today. Also some amazing memories of laughs with friends and teamwork.

Scrapyards had to invest in covering their muddy oil-laden land with expensive concrete hardstanding to prevent any further soil contamination. The environmental compliance costs led to the scrapyards having to push their costs up so high that your average weekend mechanic gave up using them. Instead the online parts listings took over with all the convenience of not having to deal with the dodgy characters who used to operate them. I had one scrapyard pikie at West Drayton threaten to shoot me with his shotgun because he thought I was nicking parts out of his yard - I had just gone into the office to ask whether they had a certain car before I went clambering over the his yard looking for it. Needless to say I didn't bother going back there ... and he went out of business. There used to be a several scrapyards around Colnbrook, near Heathrow airport. These had sprung up after WWII in what used to be market gardens for growing vegetables to be sold by their small-holders. The local council eventually closed these down before the UK Olympics in 2012, so that visitors flying into Heathrow Airport didn't have to see the vast expanse of scrapyards covering the land below the flight-path. Nowadays, it's easier to find parts online rather than dealing with dodgy characters - that's assuming that your modern car is even reparable, which is proving less so with their ever increasing complexity.

Albert Looms' in Derby was a fave hangout of mine for parts for my early cars. Maestro parts were easy to come by.

Any body remember the willows at fradley park, Litchfield,Long gone now😢

I used to tour the yards as a youth looking for Mk2 Escort bits and later on in my motoring career, Triumph 2000 bits as I developed a liking for the big Triumph saloons.

Back in the late 80's I was getting various parts for my vehicles at the time, but as far as I remember the insurance and the liability for scrap yards became an issue, so no longer could we rummage around stacked cars and vans for parts due to many accidents on the sites. It was fun at the time before H&S got involved. The risk of life and limb was all part of the fun.

Albert Looms Derby, was great in the 80s and 90s.

I once went in a scrap yard in florida while taking my family to Disney world, a bit odd I hear say, but when you live in the UK and drive an American car ?? I explained to the owner where I was from and what I wanted, and he said, "Oh, just have a walk round, just as I walked away, he shouted LOOK OUT FOR SNAKES ! I have been warned about potential danger in UK Scrap yards, but not for Snakes.

Hi brother, I used to travel from Portsmouth on the train with my dad (who no longer had a licence and prior to passing my own test) in overalls and with cantilever tool box in hand to Harris’s in Nutbourne, Chichester in the late 1970’s, what a great day climbing five cars high for that mk1 Escort part - fond memories (I’m 60 now and still as keen on cars and have a few projects on the go still. 👍

The old school scrap yards are mostly still intact in South Wales (with some decline) I bought an 86 XR2 out of one in 2001 for £80 and ran it for a few years after! Try doing that now

paying an ENTRANCE FEE for a junkyard? wtf is that bs?

Depends on where you are. In the UK, it's Health and Safety regulations which basically take the fun out of everything. In the USA, it's because of lawyers: even though there are clearly "enter at your own risk"-style signs and warnings at the yards, some dumbass will still sue when they drop a wheel on their foot, or when they get glass in their eye because they smashed a window for shiggles. It's easier and less expensive to just not deal with the public.

I grew up in an out of scrap yards, by the mid 90s fewer people were repairing their own cars and second hand cars were cheap and abundant. Sometime in the 00s UK legislation cleaned up a lot of scrap yards (no longer allowed to be in muddy fields -concrete based obligatory, oil decommissioning areas etc) I increasingly think that we are now in an era not of designed obsolescence but legislated obsolescence - scrappage scheme for old cars, now diesels.

The problem with breakers yards now is health and saftey regs, they would never allow people climbing stacked cars to get a part. and the other is due to the online aspect ebay gumtree fb market etc they have realised rather than leaving the parts on the car if they take the best parts off, doors lights engine interior etc and list it themselves they are able to sell it for more money then they scrap the shell and get more money that way. there is a next to no breakers yards near west london, there is a few decent ones in the north west. There used to be Metro salvage in bolton but i think due to their TV programme 'scrappers' they stopped joe public coming in and pulling parts, and the last of the classic style i know of is in Bury pimhole rd scrap yard. But i think ULEZ didn't kill off old cars, the lack of parts from breakers did. i remember getting a wing mirror for my X reg punto (first car in 2011) for 3 quid from a scrap yard, you go on ebay they want at least 30 quid for a basic thing. same for my brothers at the time corsa boot struts they was a few quid again now are 30 quid for new ones and 20 on ebay. people got priced out to repair bangers.

The government decided that instead of keeping, recycling, fixing old cars, it would be better to intensively mine, refine and build new ones every 3 and instead of making them in beeermingem, they'll ship them around the world and sometimes they catch fire on the wire. Everything Government touches turns to sliff.

Many an hour spent pulling bits of Renault 5's Cortinas MK2 Cavaliers and Sierras etc, Just not the volume of people working on there own cars any longer.

The other problem is that modern cars have become so 'sensitive' and cannot easily be repaired with used parts. We could all fix our old Cortinas. If anything goes wrong on a modern car, it involves computers and lots of cash.

The scrapage scheme got rid of alot of good classics that were still very useable .and left us with all this character less modern crap .what a waste. Good video mate.👍👍🇬🇧

I used to love going down GW.Bridges, pease pottage at the weekends was a great day out scrapyard hunting. Used to get some really good stuff but now its all but closed really can't even go in there now as its just a counter service so completely pointless.

Black oil infested mud, so bad you'd have to throw your shoes away after climbing all over the cars in the 80s 😂

Used to nick fuses and bulbs because they were easy pickings.....Shhh!- :)

,Although its not as gritty as it was, we in paignton still have a walk in walk around scrap yard, cars go quickly now though. It used to be very muddy now concreted but its still a place you can walk around hi viz though

I used to visit Medler's scrapyard in Norfolk in the 1990s with my dad to get parts for his 1986 Vauxhall Carlton. It was fascinating looking at all the old cars, especially the big Ford Zephyr and Zodiac mark 4s . I can't recall if I ever got anything there for my first two cars (passed driving test in 1995). However a couple of miles away from Medlers was the very organised Hainford Hall scrapyard.

In the 70s I used to go to a scrapyard in Wimbledon that had a coved area with 3 or 4 Ford Zodiacs which had been hot rodded with V8 engines out the yard. The cars were famous about London being in magazines and seen at the Chelsea Cruise.

There used to be a a car scrap yard in East Lothian. As the years went by. It changed from a scrap yard to a household clearance yard. Edinburgh Newbridge has one called S-C-B last time went around it had some nice Fords, Rovers, Vauxhall at the time

AS NEW SEATON DEAVAL DOUBLE RED ROW IS STILL THE YARD FOR ME.THE LADS TAKES PARTS OFF FOR YOU

Went to a few, i even took some photos. One them was a treasure trove. I can send pics if required.

Sat half watching this untill you said local scrap yards around scunthorpe I had to rewind and listen again thas my home town been watching this channel a long while and never knew you was from my way on lol

Here in Mid America we have yards getting smaller in number to let you pull the part. Now yards want $$ and than want to bring you the part un seen / tested. Wrench on, Spanner on!

Usually, with a German shepherd chained up by the gate.

I used to visit Bridges in South of England , back then we could climb on the top car & take off the parts we required whilst all three cars was rocking about . I once scrapped a Renault 12 back in 1988 , this was a scrapyard in Newhaven , after the car was weighed on the scales I drove it to the grabber area , the grabber picked up the car with the engine still running , I took photographs of this , but sadly I no linger have the photos as they have been lost over time .

Seeing all those mg's breaks my heart at the breakers. Although scunny was my birthplace. I've lived on the south coast for the last 35 years but as my memory serves me, me and my dad used to go to Eva bros though George was getting old johno his son kept the site going. I also remember Pitt bottom off Winterton Rd also edleys on Scotter Rd. but where we live there are no more scrappies around here and they blammed insurance and a tin foiled hat theory the government just want ice vehicles gone. Another great video Tom.

you forgot the obligatory nudie calendar in the offfice!

Old scrapyards were a hot rodders goldmine. I built a 54 Ford Pop in the 90's and many parts came from scrapped cars, such as Smith's gauges from a Dolomite Sprint. Never paid for most of the parts as I'd throw the bits i wanted over the wall but pay for something like a mk4 Cortina light lens just to maintain the facade, I'd pop back after dark and bag my loot. 😎

Unfortunately I don't think theres much left of the Eva Bros yard after being changed to MA global parts a few years back. I'm not sure what they do there now but theres no longer all the stacks of cars and such like there use to be, which is a shame. However R.C Edley are still doing great.

I used to go around scrap yards with my dad collecting car badges as a kid

I used to go to Medlars in Norfolk when I got my first car (a Hillman Imp) back in 1985, and kept using it until it closed down. A sad loss. I used to love exploring all the old cars.

I live in the states I have memories of my dad bringing home badges for me when I was little then sneaking me in at 13 and when of driving age going To them all the time to fix up my cars I still go to this day

For old skool self serve yard tours ideas may I recommend Albert Looms near Derby, Hall Green Car Spares in Birmingham and Harry Bucklands near Cheltenham......all great yards. Huge choice and youre free to poke around.....

It looks like Windley's Salvage in Tattershall, Lincs is still going. MJ Furber were a big yard - they had an Autobianchi A112 which was so rare it sat for years with no takers - they had a second big yard inexplicably miles away in Shropshire which is also now closed and turned back into a nature reserve. Looking at most of the other yards I frequented they have been flattened and business parks built on them.

There is an old school scrapyard still in operation near me, turn up with your own tools and unbolt the bits you want. Long may it continue.

God there were some early photos there.I spotted mk1 escorts, the obvious minis and an SD1.Oh " The Jungle Scrapyard" was my goto near Wolverhampton even for a good camshaft on one occasion for a vauxhall.

Loved this Tom, great video. I didn't get to go to any of the scunny yards, but we had plenty around Grimsby, Caistor salvage was one of the best if a little rural, I'd spend hours there with my dad when I was a youngster.

Strangely NZ still has breakers yards in most major cities, and there's no sign of them going out of business any time soon. The main one is Pick A Part, similar to U Pull It where the cars are parked normally as opposed to stacked on top of each other (makes it easier to get parts off them that way). There's also a collosal classic/vintage car scrapyard in the North Island called Horopito Motors - there are some videos about it here on RU-vid. Until cars become so complicated that common folk are unable or banned from doing their own repair/maintenance, there will always be a place for at least a few scrap/breakers yards to service any given population.

It’s a shame most modern scrappy’s don’t even let you in to look around. You can’t pick up fancy gear knobs or rare alloys any more, because you can’t SEE anything. You’re not going to go into a scrapyard office and say ‘you got any nice gear knobs?’ Or ‘have you got any retro wolf race wheels?’ Or ‘have you got any old capri or Cortina badges?’ They’d tell you where to go. They should have all that stuff on show in the office area, but they don’t.

Bushey Breakers in Hertfordshire used to love hunting for spare parts for my Cortina,ahh the smell of rain water,oil, and wet carpet😂

Charles Trent in Poole (back in the Nineties) was my go to place for parts for my old Volvo 240 estate and later, my 740. Those were the days!

omg one of my earliest memories is getting trapped in a car in the scrap yard opposite my house in salisbury decades ago. drivers door didn't open from inside, could of used one of three others doors , but sat and carried on driving away merrily until found. was about 5 lol

I remember in the 70s with my brother seeing who could climb the highest up the stacked cars, despite the token’NO CHILDREN’ signs 😂. Those were the days!

Worked in one in Enniskillen hassards on the hill many a day lost tools in the snow and mud happy days

Everything started to go in the late 90's. A scrapyard next to the garage I worked at literally dropped engine oil straight onto the floor, it backed onto an old quarry there must be thousands of gallons of old oil at the bottom of there along with many cars and tyres. Another I knew wrapped up becuase of environment stuff, having to concrete and put proper drainage and oil traps. Plus idiots trying to kill themselves H+S problems. A massive one at Chorley wrapped up, the land was worth more as a housing estate, which is what it is now. There's still a couple of big ones at the side of the M65 at Altham, Burnley that let you roam but they are few and far between now. Me and my mate used to spend our saturday afternoons wandering the NW scrapyards, back in the early 80's there were still some gems about.

Worked 3 years in a scrapyard and it was a fun time. I was interested in the 50s to 70s cars. Also scrapyards in Estonia are going extinct slowly. One thing is regulations and taxes. The other thing is people have much newer cars and the 20+year old ones are usually so bad that you get hardly anything from it. Just a fill for the scrap container. I know a few privately operated junkyards and they are also not doing too great. People want too much for a part vehicle and than there is the black market of car scrappers that pay zero taxes and operate on various social media platforms. I think with Electric cars it's going to be even worse. Once they are depleted it's just crush it into a cube. It seems a deliberate policy of making more and making them last less and less.

Ben Johnsons of Southport, Lancs. Still going and run by his sons - Bruce, Andy and Ian.

Hours of climbing round scrap cars, I recently found Evas in Scunny seems to have closed... only Edleys left now!!

Harry Bucklands Cotswold View, Golden Valley, Gloucester Road, Cheltenham GL51 0SS still a remove bits yourself yard has some old faves in now and again well known & very busy so they don't last long 405's Audi 100 Avant a few recents it's a Saturday morning day out !

As far back as I can remember going back to the early 90's I used to go with my day to a yard called Terry's use car spears in a village called great barford in Bedfordshire This is where my obsession with old cars began I remember turning up at the office that was an old dilapidated porta cabin full of old boys swearing and smoking cigars Tim the owner used to let me go round and take all the metal hub caps an badges off the cars and just give me them to me I still have them all My families cars were always rescued from there most of the time for 10 to 30 pounds plus all the parts to get them back on the road By the time I was 12 in 97 he started supplying me with as many metros as I wanted id ask him how much and most of the time he'd say I don't no matt AAA just have it mainly because scrap wasn't worth anything then and he always used to look after me I'd fix them up with my dad and sell them outside my house My first legal car came from there a red 1l metro city x that I turned in to a mg turbo look alike At this point about 2002 the environmental agency was on his back and made him spend a fortune on 1 depoltion bay and constantly trying to shut him down this took its toll on him Mid 2000's he got terminal cancer and the yard closed down I'll never forget the day I found out he died a few months later The bloke was a legend and would help anyone and very missed by all wheeler dealers around hear They don't make people like that anymore RIP TIM

J C auto xsak age in west Essex ..used to advertise ...car breakers psy £20 - £1000 ...!!!... He was a useful supplier ..paying £20 per car ..if the tyres were " good " ...as for paying £1000 ...mmmmm????

I used to go to 2 scrapyards in Paddock Wood in Kent down south in the UK, 1 is called JR Car Spares and they stopped allowing people to walk around in there in October 2021. I was absolutely devastated when me and my dad were told that, we last went there in June or July 2021 I think it was. But we returned in November 2021 1 day and we were all the sudden spotted by 1 of the staff there and they told us we weren't allowed to walk around there anymore. So fucking annoying! I ALWAYS found something really interesting and offbeat at JR Car Spares scrapyard. I went there from about 2001 to 2021 with my parents, most of the time with my dad. There was also a scrapyard next door to that 1 also in Paddock Wood when I was a little boy in the late 90s, I can't remember the name of it, but there was this burnt out Austin FX4 London taxi in there, we also used to find some money in the cars along with CDs, some books and old bottles of fizzy drinks and old ciggies. I used to love looking at the interiors of the cars and feeling how well made they were and seeing what features they had. JR Car Spares also had quite a few classic cars there as well. They ALWAYS had some REALLY offbeat cars and strange variations of everyday run of the mill cars, like a 3 door Citroën Berlingo (it had no sliding doors) whereas every other Berlingo I'd seen up until then had a sliding door on both sides, go figure! There was also a late 80s Nissan Cima there 1 day, a Japanese import, they had quite a few JDM cars there like Toyota Townaces. It's such a shame no one is allowed to walk around in there now as this was good for my depression and anxiety as well as a hobby. Now I have hardly anything to look forward to and don't really see any point in carrying on really.