Utah’s only classic car scrap yard being forced out to make way for new homes
Apr 18, 2018, 10:46 PM | Updated: 11:18 pm
GRANTSVILLE, Utah – Dennis McBride, 73, has spent his lifetime working in his family scrap yard, but not just any scrap yard— this wrecking yard is a full of classic cars and parts, one of a kind for Utah. Now, its days are numbered.
“I’ll have to be out by the 15th of June,” McBride said, as he sat behind the counter of his 60’s style Texaco gas station.
The nostalgic service station is full of vintage motor oil tins his father, Arron McBride, collected.
“He kept everything,” McBride said.
His father opened the service station and classic wreck yard in 1930, during the Great Depression, he learned a lot about cars and airplanes growing up since the property sits on the location of the old Grantsville airport. McBride still stores some of his best cars inside the historic airplane hangar.
However, with all the new developments going up near his property over the year, McBride knew it was only a matter of time before he would have to go.
“Now they want me to move, because they want to build through here,” he said.
With all the new regulations for scrap yards, and the new developments nearby, there’s no way he can afford to stay, he said.
“The regulations. My property taxes have quadrupled… and they want me to put a million dollar liability insurance to stay, just in case one of the new neighbor kids comes over and gets hurt… that’ll kill ya,” McBride said.
Meaning, he has to sell as much as he can before the property is bulldozed and built upon.
“We have Packards, most people haven’t even heard of a Packard, or a Hudson, or a Cord… at one point we had 211 Studebakers,” McBride said.
He’s even got a 1916 American La France fire truck, Grantsville’s original— and it still runs.
His favorite, though, is a 1956 Ford Thunderbird, Pelican blue, original stock parts, never restored— yes, that means it’s awesome.
The wrecking yard was one of the first wrecking yards licensed in the state of Utah, and is one of the only classic yards in the Western United States.
McBride was able to get Grantsville City to declare the former Grantsville Airport a historical property. Whatever cars he can fit in there, he will keep.
From now until June 15, McBride will be selling everything for just over scrap price.
