Fading: the Volkswagen Disposal Yard, Raymond, Mississippi

Please, give me some love

In mid-September, I drove by the Volkswagen Disposal Yard (where old VWs go to be dismantled or rebuilt) at 10987 Hwy 467, a few miles west of Raymond, Mississippi. I had been there before when it was active. But now it is sad. I saw far fewer hulks than in previous years. I walked to the trailer on the property, and a cheerful lady came out to talk. She said her brother once repaired the cars, but he was sick and had just returned from the hospital. She asked me if I wanted all the old Beatles. I could have them that day! Please, take them away. (I decided to pass....)

Ten years ago, this field was just covered with Beatles, a few Golfs, and a smattering of other models such as a Type 411. I do not remember seeing any busses, but he probably repaired them, as well.

The nice lady said there were more cars in the forest (jungle) behind the trailer. Yes, indeed, there were a mess of relicts back in there. 

The little station wagon was the Type 3 Volkswagen, known in the US market as a Squareback and in Europe as the Variant. My dad bought one of these when we lived in Turkey in 1965. We later shipped it to USA, and I ended up with the car in undergraduate school. The flat rear-mounted engine was only 1500 cc and put out about 55 horsepower, which was inadequate for US freeways. Top speed was about 65 mph. But it was excellent on mountain dirt roads, and I could sleep in the back. 

Sadly, all of these cars look to be beyond repair or rebuilding. Long-term readers may remember that I visited a Volkswagen yard in Moab, Utah, with many examples in much better shape (click the link).

These photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 film, exposed via a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic camera with 28mm and 35mm lenses. I used a tripod for all frames. Northeast Photographic scanned the negatives with a Noritsu system. The colors in the scans were too vibrant, and I reduced the saturation with Photoshop CS6 software.

Return to the Volkswagen Disposal Yard in Moab, Utah

In mid-2018, a friend visited Moab and told me he thought the big Volkswagen disposal yard off Spanish Valley Drive was gone. Was that possible? We had photographed the treasures (i.e., old Volkswagens) in 2016, and I thought it unlikely that someone had bought them and moved them all away. Considering that there were 100 or 200 cars there, moving them would require a fleet of 18-wheelers, a serious expense.

However, I can report good news: as of October 2019, Tom Tom Foreign Car Parts is still at 1809 E. Mill Creek Drive, at the junction with Spanish Valley Drive. It looks like someone maintains the place because I saw fresh cat food and cat water outside. I did not see the watch cats, but possibly they were on rodent patrol. I only had time for a few mobile phone images. The yard has been cleared and neatened a bit, but the overall ambience is intact.

Here are a couple of Type 3 Volkswagens, known as the Squareback in the USA market and the Variant in Europe. These were handy little station wagons with more interior room than the Beetle. I had a 1965 model in college. My dad bought this car in Ankara, Turkey. He drove it to Genoa and had it shipped to Boston. When camping, I could sleep in the back at an angle or straight front and back with the hatch open. You can't do that in most of the pretentious crossover/SUV play trucklets that curse our highways and mall parking lots today. With its rear engine, the Squareback could go up and down snowy mountain roads with no problems at all.

Here is the classic Beetle, the Type 1 Volkswagen. The original is still popular.

This is the classic bus, officially the Volkswagen Type 2. It was also called, depending on body style, the Transporter, Kombi or Microbus. The Westfalia-Werke camper versions are still popular in the US west, and restored examples sell for serious prices now.

Tom was creative in his use of body parts to make the fence at his property. Well done! When you readers travel through Moab, make time to visit the Volkswagen museum. Buy one, take it home, and get it restored. Learn how to use a real transmission (i.e., with a clutch pedal) and have fun in your Beetle.

These are all digital images from a Moto G5 mobile phone.

The Volkswagen Disposal Yard of Moab, Utah

Dear Readers, I found another Volkswagen disposal (junk) yard. This one is in Moab, Utah, off Spanish Valley Drive. The official address is Tom Tom Foreign Car Parts and Service at 1809 E. Mill Creek Drive, Moab, UT. An energetic Tom Arnold ran an active recycling business for Volkswagen collectors, but he passed away some time ago, and now his collection of 200 or 300 bodies sits in his lot. Tom considered this his man cave, according to a 2009 article in Moab Happenings. A lady I met in Moab knew his son and secured permission for me to walk around and take photographs (small towns are great because usually someone knows the right person to contact about almost anything).

TomTom's VW Museum, watch cat on patrol

Needless to say, there is a lot of inventory here - buses, Beetles of various ages, Karmann Ghias, and Squarebacks.

I was concerned, was there a watch dog? No, even better: there were watch cats. These two were on perpetual rodent control and cuddle duty.

This was the Volkswagen Type 3, known as the Squareback in the US market. These were handy little station wagons with much more interior room than the Beetle. I had a 1965 model in college. When camping, I could sleep in the back at an angle or straight front and back with the hatch open. You can't do that in most of the absurd modern crossover/SUV play trucklets that the suburban "adventure" set drives to the mall. With the rear engine over the drive wheels, that Squareback could go up muddy logging roads or snowy passes in the Cascades.

There are at least a hundred Beetles in Tom's lot. I did not see any older split rear window models, but some may have been present somewhere. At least here in Utah, rust is not a problem.

This is a 1949 Type 1 split-window model, from Wikipedia Commons (public domain). These are collectors' items now.

The Karmann Ghia was based on the mechanical underpinning of the Type 1. These were nice little sports cars.

Tom had organized his inventory neatly. Volkswagens had such a long production life, you could fit parts from various years into a car you were restoring. The Type I (Beetle) was in production from 1945 to 2003. According to Wikipedia, "With 21,529,464 produced, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single platform ever made."

But if you wanted some chassis parts, air cleaners, mufflers, etc., that may have been more of a challenge.

My other article about a VW disposal yard is from Raymond, Mississippi. I need to return to see if it has changed.

These are digital images from a Fuji X-E1 digital camera. One day I should return with film.

UPDATE OCT. 2019: Many of the Volkswagens are still there, but the yard looks cleaner and the brush has been trimmed. Click this link to see the 2019 photographs.

The Volkswagen Disposal Yard, Raymond, Mississippi

Raymond is a handsome little town southwest of Jackson, Mississippi. It features an elegant courthouse, historical buildings, and Hinds Junior College. But northwest of town on state Highway 467 is something just as unique: the place where old Volkswagens come to rest (maybe forever). To find it, drive west out of town on Main Street, and just after the Raymond-Bolton Road leads off to the right, look to the right and you will see a field full of mid-century examples of the people's car.



I have never seen anyone there, but a coworker said he occasionally sees a gent fixing a car. Also, every now and then a slightly less beat-up example appears on the grass near the mobile home, so there clearly is some sort of flux of parts and bodies.

Volkswagen Beetles are fun and plenty of folks have a fondness for them. But I'm not sure how many of these examples will ever go to good homes. This is a humid environment, so rust takes its toll.





Look at the Type 412 (the red body) in the third picture. I remember these things. They were introduced around 1973 and only came with automatic transmission for the US market. Volkswagen was ahead of its time with gauging the American public's ineptness to manage complex technology like a clutch pedal (or gauging its laziness). The 412s did not last long in the market.



In the fourth photograph you can see a US-made first generation Rabbit. I never knew why they changed the name from Golf, which was used in the European versions. The Rabbit was pretty crummy because it had been Americanized with a softer suspension, softer seats, and other compromises that took away the fun factor. Unreliability and a tendency to rust didn't help its reputation. But the diesels got 50 mpg in the 1980s.

Update: Please click the link to see a similar Volkswagen yard in Moab, Utah.

Update September 2020: The VW yard has fewer cars in it than before. I do not know if the repair business is still operating. While driving by, I saw only beetles, with no busses or other models.