Dolan Springs Arizona Auction

Leaving Vegas in the angry SS Camaro I took the wrong ninety something highway trying to head south to the Salton Sea. Always take the long way and enjoy the ride because when you do you stumble upon the greatest of adventures. Its the desert so you can fly without worry and the SS was doing just fine at about 95, at 100 the convertible top would start to complain. Blasting through 93 and in the middle of what looked like the surface of the moon I whiz past a lil parking lot of heavenly American Iron. Flipping a u’ey and I pull into A-1 Auto & Wrecking, mile post marker 39.8, Dolan Springs, Arizona.

A large hand painted sign was staring at me and yelling what you never want to hear when you see such a cool collection of old stuff, ‘Business For Sale’. I call the number and a nice guy answers the phone so I quickly beg for a yard tour even though its Sunday and they are closed. Exclaiming ‘I am from Snohomish Washington and just passing through, is there anyway I can get a tour of the yard to take pics, spread the word and hopefully keep the scrappers away’. He says ‘I will be there in 15 minutes’.

We tour the yard over the next hour or so and I try to snap a pic of anything older than 75'. The story I was told is this, Ralph the owner has been collecting for years. He had another location with twice as many cars and when he moved he sold a bunch and moved the rest to Dolan Springs. Now Ralph wants to clear the yard and let these old works of art move onto the next shepard to watch over them. American Auctioneers (Dan & Laura from Storage Wars) are handling the sales and it is suppose to take place Jan 1st.

Here they all are, they will all be sold and we gotta do what we can to keep the save-able ones out of the hands of the grave robbing, soulless recyclers who only see money in this steel and turn a blind eye to the history and design of these old girls.