Junkyard Find: Pair of Volvo Amazons

I began my automotive journalism career in late 2006, when the late Davey G. Johnson convinced Jalopnik to hire me, and I began writing about the interesting (to me) junkyard cars of Northern California soon after that. I photographed a pair of white Volvo Amazons back in those days, and it appears that I never wrote a Jalopnik post about them. So, here they are!

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

These photos were taken on August 27, 2009, with the Canon Powershot SD800 IS that I bought on Mike Bumbeck's advice when I started at Jalopnik (that camera took images in the aughts-style 4:3 ratio rather than the 16:9 ratio publications want these days, so I had to do some cropping to make them display here). The junkyard appears to be the soon-to-be-closed-forever Hayward Pick Your Part.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

The Volvo Amazon (badged as the 122S in North America but hardly anyone uses that name) still shows up in car graveyards today, and these two are the 11th and 12th I've documented during my junkyard travels (not counting the ones in the backgrounds of photos at Bloms Bilskrot in northern Sweden).

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

I'd been going to the Hayward PYP since the middle 1980s, so it was quite a blow when El Pulpo ( the six-footed hexapus mascot) shut the place down in October of 2009.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

When I searched for other photos I shot on 8/27/09 I learned that these Volvo shots were the product of a grueling day of visiting a half-dozen East, North and South Bay junkyards to document the victims of the C.A.R.S. program.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

It was a very productive day that resulted in much subsequent content from the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™. This photograph of a Spice-scented Car-Freshner Little Tree air freshener that went into a 2016 Autoweek gallery, for example. I got some shots of a Strawberry Little Tree that went into a similar gallery the following year, too.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

There was this field-expedient acrylic Corolla Tercel window with carefully angled vent holes drilled for driver comfort, in the Hayward Pick Your Part near the Amazons. I've seen a few variations on this theme in discarded cars since that time.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

That day was about chronicling the junkyard results of Cash for Clunkers, though, and my readers gnashed their teeth over many vehicles that yielded their owners vouchers worth $2,500 to $4,500 applicable for the purchase of qualifying new vehicles. How many of those vehicles were final-moments-of-Pontiac Vibes, G3s, G5s and G6s?

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

On to the Amazons! The first is a 1965 two-door sedan, which was flanked in its final parking space by a Jaguar XJ-S and a Mercedes-Benz W123 sedan.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

By 2011 or so, I'd be obsessed enough with the junkyard historical narrative to want to write separate articles about every 1970s XJ-S and most W123s I found, but I hadn't reached that point by the summer of '09 (when I was much more interested in documenting the ongoing Cash for Clunkers drama at the boneyards).

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

I wish I'd shot more photos of this Fiat 128 Spider, but they still get thrown out at about the same rate today.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1965 was the first model year in which American Volvo shoppers could get an Amazon with an automatic transmission, and this car has one with 1960 Chevy-style PRNDL column shifter (which is odd, since the Borg-Warner BW35 was a three-speed).

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

It was only 44 years old and not at all rusty. 15 years later, perhaps the Chinese cars built with its steel have been scrapped themselves.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

Nearby was this 1967 Amazon four-door sedan, the final year before U.S.-market Volvos got unsightly side marker lights.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

The B18 pushrod straight-four originally installed in this car was rated at 95 horsepower. Maybe that's this very engine, although engine swaps have always been commonplace with old Volvos.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

This car went to its demise with a very straight body and zero rust.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

After a bit of research (I get obsessed with these details), I learned that this swallow-themed sticker is the late-1990s logo for skateboard-centric Innes Clothing.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

Junkyard shoppers had extracted the entire dash before I arrived, but the interior looks to have been in pretty good shape prior to that.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

It's unfortunate that someone smashed most of the rear glass, depriving Bay Area Amazon restorers of hard-to-find windows.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

What does Christina Schollin think about her Amazon? She's still working at age 86, by the way.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

junkyard find pair of volvo amazons

1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.

[Images: The Author]

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