Crown Vics in UK scrap yard! Front fenders found!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
- Finding a good set of wings (fenders) for a Crown Vic is not easy in Britain - Ive been looking for a year - and buying and importing can cost over £600 EACH! So when a viewer tipped me off about Crown Vics in a scrapyard, I had to get there fast!
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @furiousdriving
I’m proudly partnered with Lancaster Insurance, who have been arranging cover for specialist vehicles since 1984. Speak to one of their experts on 01480 400 771 or click here bit.ly/3Y2JkMs to request a call back or get a quote online.
Proudly sponsored by Diamondbrite Keeping the Furious Fleet shining - Clean, Protect and care for your car - diamondbrite.c... and get 10% off your order with code FD10
Theres a Merch store!! Head over to www.furiousdriving.co.uk to find the T shirts, hats, mugs, key rings, badges and more soon on there!
Get 25% off Gentlebands Re-imagined Rings with code ‘furiousdriving’ on this link gentlebands.co...
Get a 15% discount on Auxito LED bulbs for your car with this link: www.auxito.com...
Check out my Amazon store for all the Draper tools used on the channel www.amazon.co....
All the other Furious Driving, Rover, Alfa stickers, mugs, T shirts HERE - rdbl.co/3AhvDLL on Redbubble
Hit the Channel Member JOIN button and become a Furious Driver or help support the channel on Patreon here: / furiousdriving
Post me stuff for Junk in the Trunk post bag section!
Furious Driving
PO Box 477
AYLESFORD
ME6 9LE
Check out my new Photography channel 'Click Bait' - bit.ly/2Xek1Y1
I knew you'd go back for that second wing 😂 Don't blame you. Good finds.
Amused American here. The flip side of this is our restaurants using black London cabs for decor.
Last time I saw a Crown Vic in UK was near Belfast, sheriffs car outside a Harley Davidson dealers. Never going to be used on UK roads I suspect as it still had US or US style plates on it, no UK or NI plates. Some TGI Fridays used to have other Yank Tanks outside but they will be long gone now.
I recall the Aging Wheels channel’s Reliant Robin was previously a display from a British themed restaurant in New York.
I used to fix black London cabs(FX4s) in the 80s.
Stupid question but what do 'English Restaurants' sell in the US, I can't imagine anyone getting excited about pie and chips
Really is the way of breakers yards, taking parts from a surprisingly good car to put on one that's stitched together
I love the wheels on the taxi....dog dish hub caps!
Oh good, I'm happy you reacted to my comment, it was obviously worth your while to drive up to Bloxham. Good on you!
I couldn’t find the tip off to say thanks but was well worth it
What a shame about the roof damage on both cars , they look really good structurally, I bet their sills are not held together with expanded foam.
So upndown is the aussie ford specialist. You are the US ford specialist 😊
24:43 - I know what you mean, places like this are such a bittersweet vibe where you're glad for all the donor parts helping keep other cars on the road, but you're sad for those poor vehicles which ended up there, most of which might have been saveable at the time with the right person to step in.
can see your genuine enthusiasm - i'm the same in a scrapyard when i find a useful part :)
Your second Crown Vic, the one changed from green to yellow, is simply explained. There are two types of "Yellow" cabs, the original ones, which are yellow and can go all over the city, and the Green ones. Those are limited to pickups in the outer boroughs (Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island). They can pick up in the outer boroughs and drop off in Manhattan, but have to go back to the outer boroughs without a paid fare. Once out of Manhattan, they are the same, just painted green. These are a bit younger than my days as a "hack". We had the Checker Cabs, which all the fares really enjoyed...
Thanks, I didn’t know about the green outer borough cabs! Must have been annoying getting a fare into Manhattan and having a long drive back out
@@furiousdriving It still is, and what with the Uber and Lyft cars also all over the city, it's hard for a cabbie to make a living. The only advantage the yellow and green cabs have is they can pick up off the street. That's not as much of an advantage as it once was...
Your excitement is palpable!
The taxi with the dent in the roof was outside TGI Fridays on Telford Town Centre until recently, I believe.
Been vandalised by some prat unfortunately....
I thought that one looked very familiar
Ah that's the one. I asked the guy in there and he said a load of kids jumped on it.
My first thought was I bet they're TGI Friday cars. We had one outside of the Doncaster branch that kids smashed up.
Thanks Matt what a really, really enjoyable video! Perhaps you could do some more scrap yard explorations?...
I would love to, always fascinating to explore
Take some secateurs next time, it's painful watching you fight the brambles
Glad you found out about those cars. You bought what you needed. Great I. I thing i would have, "Stretched" the budget a little more. To have a spare alternator in stock and maybe some relays, from the fuse box. Cheers. see you in the next one. 👍👍
Reminds me of the time my dad had a Mk1 Cortina that he set about making big improvements to. He bought a second scrappy Cortina, kept it at his brother in laws, and used it as a donor car for spares.
Great find for sure. I really like these cars, I didn't know much about them till you got yours. It's a real pity these didn't survive.
I've spend many an hour removing stuff from cars in Smiths Yard over the years. Recently I've sent a couple of cars into that yard, one of which had a load of parts on it that came out of the yard a few years earlier
The circle of life
Reminds me of happy days 40 years ago spent climbing up cars stacked three high for 'treasure'. Health and safety? Never heard of in those days.
Haha, same! I remember being sent by my dad into an SD1 on top of a stack of 3 to retrieve the seatbelts from it when I was about 12. The whole stack was swaying. H&S? Never heard of her 😂
Really enjoyed that, would love to have been there helping you. So hard to say no to rare stuff. Definitely have the light and wheels, where else can you get them if needed...... probably no where. Don't forget to stock up on 8mm sockets. Windscreen looked fine in one of them cars. Go over your car and look at it to see if you want anything else. In a few years these cars will be like hens teeth 🙄👍🇮🇪
The lights are surprisingly cheap on Rock Auto and these were a bit tatty but there are other bits to nab still
I try to avoid bringing my “good” (US Snap on/Craftsman)tools to the junkyard unless it’s for a specific task.
I usually bring the cheap price tools(China).
If they get lost or stolen I’m not out of a lot of money.
In America we have “Harbor Freight Tools” which specializes in their own branded China made tools(lifetime warranty)for bargain prices.
I’ve heard Canada has the equivalent store called “Princess Auto”-does the UK/Europe have a tool store like this🤔?
@@FrankTimms-cs5hl alot of my tools were inherited from dad, I also pick up stuff from stalls and markets too. If i need something urgently i go to screwfix or Halfords or a motor factors 🫡👍🇮🇪
Would love to see another rummage aroind any scrapyards, your genuine enthusiasm comes through. Perhaps going hunting for any bits for the Alfa in future might warrant a rummage? 🤔
If I could find a 159 in a scrap yard! I love a look around these places too
Matt you are lucky you can still go and pull your own parts. The last self-serve wrecker shut down here in New South Wales a few years ago, and now you can't do it yourself due to OH&S! I spent my youth in Manchester scouring scrap yards for bits for my Mk2 escort back in the day. Pulled the wooden door caps and other Ghia bits off a Mk1 Granada coupe and cut them down/adapted them to my Escort 1.3 Popular to Ghia'fy it up a bit. Cheers Steve
Not even at Flynn's wrecking yard?
Interesting video Matt, pleased you got your panels in the end.
I used to do scrap salvage in summer only. But at least you got what you wanted urgently, with cars as rare as that, one has to move quick to be in like Flynn.
Wow a result someone letting you know about the vics in a scrapper. Really impressed with the metal on this US ford unlike there European cousin. Same age euro ford would have completely rusted out. Late Cortinas and Sierras were reasonably thick steel unlike Focus bean tin thick. Hope you found your 8mm socket.
Great video.
Matt....I felt I was with you! We have many U-Pull yards here in America. I LOVE going! It's about 25 years of memories for me! The fun part is I learn how to remove the parts on a "junk" car and not mine! Some of our yards have a printed price list instead of wondering how much the guys are going to charge! Yes, I have said to myself as well, " I'm wet and I stink"!
It's good you managed to find parts for the Vicky in the UK - hope you can make good use of them.
What a great 'find' knowing when to stop 'just one more bitting' is an art when it comes to your car in a scrappers and yes they're always nicer than your own one.
That was great glad you got some parts best regards Andy Allen
I'm really pleased for you. Got what you needed. Many years ago in 2002 I bought a 1986 Volvo 740 GLE estate for £425. My first car. A B230K Carb model with red interior with various broken door trim bits. Went to my Local old School breakers yard and bought a 940 electric sunroof motor, cover and switch to convert my manual sunroof to electric. A few months later stopped off again and asked them if any 740's were due in and said yes any minute! Sure enough a 1987 740 Turbo Diesel estate came on a transporter. Asked the guy what interior colour is it. Red!! Unloaded it and I had all the door pull trims and mirrors off it! Got everything to repair my car! Was so chuffed and all very cheap.
It's well worth it you got some good parts
One man scrap is another man GOLD.
Well done Matt on getting what you 'needed'. It's a tough one from my old memories of getting parts from a breakers yard thinking along the lines of what is good and what you really can make use of but that common sense valve has to open at some point and say enough is enough (which is usually more than you need) and step away. Here's looking forward to some more Crown Vic tinkering. I think you need to set up an 8mm socket adoption site though given the ones that escaped into the wild on your trips. Many thanks for sharing.
A very excited Matt!! Glad you found those wings! Note that green is not factory, there is green paint over rubbers, door wiring conduits & door lock mechanism screws. All these things are fitted after it’s painted. Likely it was white originally. That Crown Vic has had a life that’s for sure.
My favourite scrap yard, been getting bits from there for years. Nice chaps to deal with, even gave me a bottle of ice cold orange juice when I was getting some mini wheels in the baking summer heat.
The Vic's are in the bit you don't normal get to go in when your picking your own parts.
Ooooh! A lotta right thumb tapping in this video…but kinda cool to find those two CV’s!
Invaluable source of parts, hopefully they don't crush them anytime soon. Shame you didn't have the space to keep them for spares. So handy for the little bits and Bob's you can't get on the Internets. I've been after a door stiker for mine for years😂
What a result a good days work and a good money saver too greetings from Scotland 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
I did exactly this collecting spare parts just in case for my previous P5b and P6, when the cars were sold, I sold the spate parts for more than my P5B sold for
I am beyond fortunate that my Crown Vic is in excellent condition. Little bits of rust on the bottom of the passenger door, some on the trunk.
But underneath it’s almost mint. Absolutely love these cars.
Mine is a 2011 in dark blue. Absolutely LOVE your green!
That Crown Vic in the yard was not a fleet car, that definitely seems like something a “fan” created
What an epic job, Matt! That chrome grille was nice too
Taxis in the outer boroughs of Nyc are green.
You are like a kid in sweet shop
I’ve stripped numerous Crown Vics in junkyards here in America & gotten good at memorizing where every bolt/screw is & size.
(I was the one who sent you the pics of the Crown Vic sills for reference)
One trick I’ve used is lay a tire flat on top of the engine to rest the hood/bonnet on while pulling the fenders.
While the cars are still there I would look over your car and make a list of anything you would possibly need for extras(mostly large items that are costly to ship from the United States).
I would suggest going back for the header panel off the older one and an extra pair of bumper covers.
As long as it doesn’t strain your finances and storage space😉
I’ve seen a few imported UK/Europe cars in the junkyards here in the states(reverse scenario)a Volvo 480,Cortina/Granada(I have the GXL badge from it)and a LHD German Ford KA(have the oval dash clock).
I would have possibly bought one of them if I was able to intercept them before they got to the scrapyard(they were extremely rusty though)☹️
Things like plastic pipes and the airbox would be hard to find elsewhere. I'd be all over that car like a rash 😂👍🇮🇪
I’d be amazed to see a Volvo 480 in Europe now! I’m tempted to go back, there’s not much I need but would like spares, it’s the space to store big panels that’s the problem
One important thing to consider is the glass from the cars.
If the unfortunate event occurred where you needed to replace a window or windscreen not only would shipping from the US be expensive but there would be a higher than normal risk of something breaking😮
Between both cars I’d see if either the yard would pull the windscreen & back glass or have an auto glass person pull them.
Pulling them yourself in cold temperatures is risky as the adhesive is rock solid!
It would be worth pulling the doors as it would include all the bits inside the door and cost less than buying the individual parts off the door.
Too bad the glass is broken on the driver’s door on the older car🙁
Great find Matt.
I'd love to see you pulling that low mileage V8 from that Crown Vic!
The lime green is a NYC taxi cab colour serving the higher parts of Manhattan. Police do use them to look like taxis. You see them parked in front of the police stations from time to time
Great find Matt 😊👍
Would love to see you do some junk yard walk arounds!!
I remember seeing a yellow crown vic parked in front of a tgi fridays with a damaged roof, likely one of them
Not a taxi; that’s a standard LX trim. It never served as a NYC taxi, I assure you. Movie car, perhaps.
Another great video has always Matt and family hope you can get the paint to match 👍
These were parked outside branches of TGI Fridays as ornaments. There was one outside the Telford restaurant which was pretty rough.
Those Crown Victoria Taxis will help keep other Crown Victoria's on the road and removing those mud guards was a lot cheaper than importing new guards from the USA
I would ask & convince the yard owner that many people would have interest in parts from both those cars and to keep/move them to an area where they would be out of the way.
I did this with one junkyard in Florida and the owner put their 9 Crown Victorias/Grand Marquis off in a corner of the yard as I stop by there several times a year buying hundreds of $$dollars$$ of rust free parts.
They are starting to not be as common here in the states anymore.
Might give others a chance to grab some parts & extend the time from a date with the crusher😱!
I’ve said I’ll tell the CV community so hopefully they’ll leave them a while
Nice haul!! A N. I shogun there in front too 😢
Tbh i would take that dented fender, You could pop it back into shape if its solid.
Excellent video!
Glad you were able to find some! From what I can tell the first yellow taxi one stared life as a P74 civilian LX model (98-02) that was converted to a taxi. Some signs are that it has the chrome grille, door key pad, electric ac controls, and the original white color. The taxi designation I think was P70/P7A which was the long wheelbase model. Shame it wasn’t in great condition. This is most likely why your key did not work with it.
It was definitely a civilian model, so had a unique rather than fleet key, but had been in great condition before scrapping
Would a taxi, particularly an NYC one, have had a partition fitted between the seats?
@@CycolacFan All the ones Ive been in did, I think its standard for them
Great restraint shown there. I'd have picked them bad boys to the carcass. Might be the last time you will see a 'vic in a scrap yard over here.
Shame that second one came with the rare option of an in car pond.
2 hours per wing will dull your enthusiasm for taking more
@furiousdriving £1200 for the pair in the UK would have me out there now matter what the weather. Tasty classics lad with you and you'd be sorted in no time, he's as strong as a horse 🤗👍🇮🇪
As others have mentioned, I saw a couple of these parked outside TGIs in Fareham a few years ago. One was a taxi, the other a police car
Fantastic video enjoyed that one. What a pity you haven’t got room to buy those two old crown Vics and pop them somewhere just in case in a perfect world maybe 😊
As they have certificates of destruction I’m not sure I could even if I had space to hide them
Great finds. Hard work but no postage and packing
Ah, that's a shame... I would have liked that P74 in my own collection!
There's one outside TGI Fridays in Telford. Last time I went the roof was dented with windows smashed but everything else looked fine.
This is why we can’t have anything nice
If that alfa romeo gt is the version with the diesel engine. It should be the same as the one in your 159. But also watched a video a while ago. Where the engine is the same in the vectra.
An excellent watch Matt, I feel the same about scrap yards, sad places, a cemetery of hopes dreams and aspirations,
What was wrong with that volvo, crazy waste
Excellent find and well done on your perseverance, did you grab a starter and alternator while you were there, they and many other parts/sensors etc might have been good to get for spares while they are available, especially off the one you know started..
I didn’t get that, if I go back I might
Nice little haul there Matt!
Look forward to seeing your Vic with the centre caps...never been a massive fan of the wheel covers really though nice to have originality!
Quite surprised the RR isn't ULEZ but is low miles and an HSE too.
same with my honda preludes i have on my channel, getting very hard to find certain parts and the new mystery 1990s supercar i just bought as a project car
Love your crown Victoria,you mention about another yard,that had a rover,
Whete was that yard
that was at the entrance here, cars recovered and for sale but it sold within a day of my visit
5:32 The old truck looks like a Dodge 100 "Kew". They're featured in an old black & white film called 'Hell Drivers'. At the time of sending this message the full movie is here on YT (that's how I saw it). If you get chance do watch it, it's quite entertaining (some famous actors are in it).
Ive seen it a couple of times, they do look familiar to that now you mention it
It’s a Ford Thames ET6 or 7 with a Flathead V8 😢
Shame you didn't know about those before, could have taken big floor cuts to salvage those sills.
I thought that!
Might still be worth getting just to have or flog on, surely someone would definitely need sills for theirs.
You've been quiet, guess the weather doesn't help.
@@terryatkinson899 I'd agree, probably can't take the chassis due to the certificate of destruction
@@terryatkinson899 Just too much on at the mo to do cars.
It does seem strange to see huge American cars in European scrapyards.
Happy hunting Mr Furious, hope you find all of the parts you need❤.
That is a regular Crown Victoia, as it has the keypad on the driver's door. Also, the trunk release is not on the dash; the genuine taxi P74 can have longer rear doors. The second is an ex-police, who could have been a fire chief car at an airport with the day-glo green.If the steering wheel has a cruise control steer buttons, it's worth $500, but it will work in all the later ones with a twink of a laptop, it will engage cruise, which was disabled from the factory, but it's in the system.you should of took the ashtrays, they are getting hard to find, $150
Tgi 01....those wheels! I bet it was difficult not taking loads more! I miss the days of being able to clamber over cars in a scrappy. Bloody elf and safety. When it comes to taking tools to any situation take them all! As an aside am sure matt Armstrong will be importing something from the USA again soon! Get him to wang some bits in the crate for you! Cheers mat great video.
TGI Fridays went into administration late last year and some of these were nicked from outside and ended up in scrapyards. Wonder how they got them?
The Recievers selling off assets I’d imagine
Would’ve been nice if they tried selling them first🙁
Many of those “corporate types” are not car people 🙄🤨
Please use paint stripper and remove all the layers of paint before painting the wings!!
I believe that car was outside tgi fridays Birmingham
With TGI Fridays going bust you may find more of these in scrap yards in the near future. There's a very sad looking one outside the one in Sheffield.
most have already disappeared now
I’ve passed the one on Sheffield many times.
The ones in States may get a buyout….no Crown Vic’s at our ones though unless it’s a customer come to have dinner.
When I read the video titled, for a moment I was worried you were referring to YOUR Crown Vic in the scrap yard. Phew!
What a find, you must have thought Christmas had come early 😂
Clackett Lane is still my favourite motorway services location!
Why? Place is near me and I don't see the appeal at all, drive past it most days lol
Given where these came from, I wonder what has happened to all the Hardly Davison's that where inside all the restraunts that have closed?
Thank u that was good entertainment
That green might be a 'boro taxi'. The 5 boroughs of NYC, the green ones can't pick up in Manhattan but they can drop you off there.
That’s what I thought. Does NYC still offer that? It’s been a decade since I’ve been in New York. I thought they terminated that program, which would be why it was painted back to yellow.
@@seanharvey1250 definitely still green cabs, just not many and I think they've moved to a new system so won't be any new ones. If it was changed to yellow in the US it could have been because it was under a new permit covering the city. Or maybe it was changed in the UK to look more iconic?
Bob Wilding in Langrick Lincolnshire always had crown vics at his garage just by the old Ferry Boat INN what he turned in2 an American dinner..... matt this is very close to Coningsby
They’ve gone recently, used to drive past often
@furiousdriving ok matey not been there recently but it was worth a thought 😉
The wheels on that first taxi are lovely!
Matt, the 1st gen XC90 does NOT have air suspension but the rear dampers are the Nivomat self levelling ones. That was quite the haul with all those parts. It is always easier the 2nd time round whne liberatring parts.
I’m tempted to try and save the Volvo as well!
rear lights with yellow bit
The one outside our Telford TGI’s has just gone so that could be in a scrap yard somewhere
Yep, it's the one of the cars in this video (the originally white one)
What a score!! I would've taken the other wing off the Crown Vic..Do they have any Volvos there? I saw the XC90 but other old things? Oh you did get the other wing. I probably need to go and pay Lakes a visit again soon - I heard somewhere they were supposed to be closing soon? I know you probably don't want another trip there but is there a market for taking off more parts and trying to sell on yourself? I try to take parts off that I know are common failure items and sell on eBay for a small profit. Some parts take a while to go, but usually go..
I got the 3 good ones, but 2 hours per wing to get them off so not bothering with the damaged one! This place gets so many cars its hard to say what they'll have, there were a couple of S40s I noticed
Lakes is investing but they didn't have anything classic when I went - they were deliberately only getting newer cars, but I was annoyed they were buying good cars to break rather than broken cars
Omg i love this, I would love to go there one day. Great find!
I use that scrapyard it's hour and half away from me some good old cars in there and macd's always good
Could be a fire chiefs car. When we were in Guam the fire engines were snot green...not red.
lol, California scrap yards I’m tripping over rows of those horrible things 😂
I remember in the early 90s helping a friend at art college find a couple of Caprices to help her decorate a wine bar. When I went down there later to see what she’d achieved the taxi had been sliced in half and mounted on the wall. The police one, don’t know if it was a genuine 9C1, had survived and was in a corner behind barriers. About ten years later I saw it again, cut in half and mounted on the outside of a church that had been converted into a nightclub 😢
The newer style steel wheels wouldn't fit correctly on your year because of suspension changes in 2003. I wouldn't sweat having left them.
I nearly gave up at a breakers yard trying to remove mudguards on a Mercedes W123. After removing all bolts. The glue or sealer still made it impossible to remove. Ended up having to angle grind and separate from the skirts. Took a long time to burn off sealer and eventually dislodge from the remains of side skirt strip still attached.
Yes my local TGI Fridays had one like this parked outside for a while but inevitably people jumped on the roof and the tyres went flat and it looked a right old mess so off to the scrappies it went 😢
I prefer the wheels on the first car over the Police spec.
Personal choice of course, but I’ve never been a fan of that alloy design
Despite all the "Cleaning Up" of yards - it's interesting to know that the old school brambles and mud experience is still a thing!
I remember at one of the (Paddock Wood) yards you would be jumping between the wheels and tyres that were soaked into the mud for some solidity!
I remember back in 2007 the Pound Dollar exchange rate was such that everything in the U.S was half price.
I remember that time, had a coupe of very cheap trips to the US then
went there a few times b4