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!
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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).
I wish I'd shot more photos of this Fiat 128 Spider, but they still get thrown out at about the same rate today.
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).
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.
Nearby was this 1967 Amazon four-door sedan, the final year before U.S.-market Volvos got unsightly side marker lights.
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.
This car went to its demise with a very straight body and zero rust.
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 shoppers had extracted the entire dash before I arrived, but the interior looks to have been in pretty good shape prior to that.
It's unfortunate that someone smashed most of the rear glass, depriving Bay Area Amazon restorers of hard-to-find windows.
What does Christina Schollin think about her Amazon? She's still working at age 86, by the way.
1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1965 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
1967 Volvo 122S in California wrecking yard.
[Images: The Author]
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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I clicked on those links and my heart broke a little when I saw that Jensen Interceptor in the wrecker's yard.
I kick myself occasionally for not getting a manual Volvo. Those shifters are really cool. I kick myself more for not marrying Becky.