Sometimes you need to Cadillac 80s GM heap from break-ins, and sometimes you just need to make your Cadillac 80s GM heap shorter. The junkyard is a wonderful place to see all manner of last-ditch backyard repairs... repairs that were ultimately unsuccessful. For example, this car, which was apparently involved in a wreck that mashed in the nose. Someone took quite a while working with sheetmetal and Bondo on the fenders, did a good straight cut across the hood's remains... but then seems to have had about 45 seconds to rope a truck radiator into place. No cooling fan, y'all- just keep moving!

Roaming the rows of my favorite self-service junkyard in scintillating Hayward, California, I…