Temples Auto Parts: Part One

Temples Auto Parts: Part One

When my father was young, his grandfather owned a 1948 Plymouth Special Deluxe coupe. Dad would sit and play in the car as a kid and pretend to drive it. That car was eventually sold, and dad had wanted one for himself ever since.

Four years ago, dad purchased an almost all original and unrestored 1948 Special Deluxe four door survivor. Despite the fact that he managed to harvest a front fender from a burned out Special Deluxe that miraculously ended up in our local Pull-A-Part junkyard, the car still needed parts. This left him with the options of buying parts from out of state or finding another parts car (that was less toasty, preferably) located closer to home. Dad consulted my uncle, a fellow car aficionado, for any leads.

My uncle told dad about an old junkyard that was out in the sticks. With dad preferring to purchase parts in state, he went to the junkyard, was allowed to walk through it, and bought some Plymouth parts. Dad didn’t tell me much about the yard. .

Fast forward to May 2016. Long story short, my grandfather gave me a 1973 Ford Gran Torino station wagon when I was a little kid. We were finally starting to get the car running again after it had sat for almost forty years. There were many bumps in the road to getting that car back on the road, but the biggest one by far was that the car's left long rear side window was broken. When I started searching for a replacement, I learned quickly that most old wagons were beat into the ground and thrown away and not many were made to begin with in a lot of instances. I realized that finding specific parts for old station wagons can and often does prove to be quite difficult. That's when I thought of the old junkyard that dad had told me about some time before and asked.

“I saw some old Ford wagons, but they looked to be older,” he said. “I think they were the late sixties body style. I didn’t see any like yours.”

Having already entered the Torino community, I knew some people around me that had actually been to the yard before and they confirmed that there were multiple 1972 and newer Torino wagons like mine in the yard. Dad still didn't believe me, but all it took was a phone call for the yard itself to confirm that they did indeed have some '72 or newer Torino wagons on hand. On a warm morning late in the month, we finally made the fifty mile drive to Temples Auto Parts in Batesburg, South Carolina to get the hard-to-find window that my car needed. I grabbed my DSLR camera, but was a little worried that the management would not let me take photos inside the yard.

Walking into the office is like walking into a dark storm that smells like cigarettes. I immediately noticed that there were car parts everywhere in the office. I saw a grille for a Datsun 620 truck, hubcaps, signs and knick knacks, car windows, body panels, and other parts everywhere. There was a door at the back of the office that led out into the main yard. We then found the man we talked to on the phone - Russell. We told him what we came to find and Russell then informed us of the yard’s glass pulling policy - only the yard management pulls glass so that if it breaks, it’s on them. “There’s a ‘73 Torino wagon out in the yard,” he then said to the forklift operator. “Go pick it up.”

Russell jokingly told me to watch out for snakes and said that I was free to take as many photos as I wanted to. Dad and I walked around the main yard while the forklift driver retrieved the wagon that I'd be getting my window out of.

I was like a kid in a candy store. I was captivated. There were old cars in various states of disrepair for as far as the eye could see.There was rust everywhere. I was snapping picture after picture as we walked down the sandy and forklift tracked trails that separated groups of cars. My dad urged me to hurry up as I briefly stopped to shoot photos. It was clear that he did not intend to stay for long, so I had to make it count. Almost as soon as we entered the wonderland, I noticed a '65 Impala to my right that was a two door and had great patina, but had a mangled roof. To my left, there was a 1964 through 1966 GMC van with a front visor that I had never seen before. I was just in awe of the sheer amount of old cars around us. This was the first time I had ever gone to a yard that you'll only hear about by word of mouth.

Almost within the blink of an eye, the yard management had removed the window from the parts car and returned it to its spot. We then went to the parts wagon and looked over it for a few minutes. I could see right away that it was a 1974 to 1976 model and not a ‘73, but I also knew that the part I needed would still fit my car. I also immediately noticed that the parts car was a Squire, as evidenced by the faded translucent faux wood along the car’s sides and tailgate. I was sure that this wagon was in worse shape than mine, being that it had more rusted through areas, a dried out interior, and possibly a locked up engine. I was surprised to see dual sport mirrors on this wagon.

After we finished surveying the brown Squire, dad and I then walked around for a few more short minutes. I managed to find a couple of 1972 Gran Torinos. Two were laser stripe equipped Sport fastback models, and one was a four door Brougham.

By the time we made it back to the office, the window had been laid on a stack of tires and was ready for pickup. The total came out to $107. $100 for the glass and $7 in sales tax, paid in cash. With that, we carefully laid the window in the back of dad’s S10 Blazer and left. We were only there for about half an hour, but I was glad that I finally was able to obtain the one hard to find part that my Torino wagon really needed and that I got to see such a sight. I knew for a fact that I’d be back. The whole thing felt like a dream, honestly.

Temples Auto Parts is located at 7303 Two Notch Road, Batesburg, SC 29006.
The yard is open from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on weekdays and from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM on Saturdays.
The yard is closed on Sundays.



If you'd like to see all of the photos I took on this trip, they are on my Flickr page here.

I'm on YouTube here

I'm also on Instagram @Dburger62. 

Thank you for reading!