Well, me and a buddy went junkyarding today in what turned out to be one bizarre event. The second yard we visited is an unorganized disaster, but they get some pretty nice cars in. Well, we're scavenging through what they have, when I spot a 2 door Grand Prix GT at the far end of the VERY last isle in the yard. I run over to it spotting something odd. I thought maybe my eyes were deceiving me because the windows were tinted, but low and behold, when I opened the door.......DARK GREY LEATHER SEATS!!! And I'm talking the cloth plus leather kind like in the TGPs!!! What's more, the entire interior was in mint condition and completely intact (yes, even the driver's seat)!! It had the CD player style steering wheel controls, and the best tape deck offered for that year (looks just like my CD player in a cassette version). Even the steering wheel was in good shape. I look at the odometer, and I see 89,000 on the clock. No wonder everything was in pretty damn good shape.

So, running short on time (the yard closed at 5 P.M.) and freezing our asses off (it's still pretty cold here in Chicago), me and my friend took off as much as we could, and figured we'd come back for the rest. At least this way it would look less desirable for someone to take since the majority would be missing. Figuring it was getting close to 5, I look around the yard real quick (which is pretty freaking huge), and see a few other people wondering around. We couldn't get the driver's seat out because we needed to move it, and we ran out of time for the door panels. I got EVERYthing else to convert the TGP to dark grey interior. We strapped everything to my buddy's 2-wheel "hand truck", and I grabbed a few things and the tools and started the long journey to the counter up front. I had a bad feeling this was going to happen, but when we got up there, we found that they had closed, everyone was gone, and we were LOCKED IN!!!!!!!

I dropped everything and ran over to the gate to find that my buddy's massive Suburban was the only vehicle (save for some abandoned, broken down cars way off to the side) in the parking lot. It just barely after 5!!  WTF?!?!  Granted we were late, #1 no one came around to declare closing time, #2 how in the hell did everyone lock up the office, lock up the gates, and pull out of the parking lot that fast when there were still people straddling just before 5? I was standing there thinking "this can't be happening". My fingers were numb as it was, I was starving, and the last thing I needed was to wait here to figure out a way out.

We thought it out for a minute. The approximately 7' foot fence was covered in barbed wire, and we had a heavy ass tool bag and dolly with us. I thought about calling the cops, but then I considered the amount of time it would take for them to get here, and then to find the owner or whoever was going to unlock the gate, then wait for that person to arrive and let us out. We're talking HOURS, and there's no way we could wait that long. So, we broke out the digital camera (which us always on is for random finds in the junkyards), took a BUNCH of pictures from the inside (to prove we were there after hours in case they try to say "your word against ours"), took a few photos of the parts we pulled that we dropped by the check out booth, before going with plan B. We moved all the parts over to a safer place so they wouldn't get destroyed the next morning. I noticed that the sliding gate where the cars were let in from didn't have any barbed wire at the top, so I let my friend climb it first and get over the top. I then handed him the dolly hand truck, and the much harder to lift over your head tool bag. Then I scaled the fence, and slid down the other side, too.

Needless to say, all this was totally unnecessary to go through. I have never heard of a junkyard without a PA system or a person walking around to notify everyone that "times up". I can't believe every employee left without checking to make sure no one was inside, ESPECIALLY since there was a massive truck in the parking lot. Guess they saw it, but didn't care. But they'll care tomorrow when I ask for the owner's contact info to have my attorney send him a letter. I have to work, but hopefully my buddies going in to pick up the parts and the number tomorrow. We'll see what happens.  But needless to say, I'm EXTREMELY PISSED!!!

Hey man that really sucks big time!!! :evil:   I know that was a nasty end to a great day, but I was thinking the bad part coming in the end of your story was the next day the parts were gone, that would piss me off too, but lets HOPE your buddy gets there in time and gets the rest, NICE FIND!!!  Though is personal preference, I never much liked the light gray in the TGPs I have seen, shows dirt too much and is not a very rich looking color, not LIKE a nice dark grey, that WOULD be the shit, I would love to change out my Tan that I like (sporty!) to dark grey, it would look rich, sharp and not show the dirt so quickly, GOOD LUCK!!!  Oh yea, let me know what year this Grand Prix was, might need that info next time I go looking now that I know it exists!!

Jeff M

Nice find man.  Was this at the U-Pull it junkyard in Aurora?  I know a few people that got kinda locked in there.  Let us know what year that thing was I wouldn't mind switching out my tan interior for grey either.

Just FYI..but I looked at a 91 Grand Prix GT before that had the same style quad buckets, but they were light gray in color(and the driver's seat looked horrible)..car had ~167K on it.  It basically has everything a 91 GTP has save for a different spolier(luggage rack type) and it had the 3.1 in it instead of the 3.4 TDC engine.  I can upload/post pics if any of you are interested?

Well, my buddy is not positive (didn't tell him to look for the year before he went back), but he thinks it's a '92.  I do know it had the DOHC.  Engine was gone, but the 24-valve badges were still on the quarter panels.  And it had the newer style tape deck, so that would make sense.  Anyways, as for a follow up, I copied/pasted this off another board.....

The good news is, my buddy went back and got the ENTIRE interior Monday. The only thing left in the car is the dash itself (I'll need a dashpad with a HUD, anyway). He got the front and back bucket seats, front and back center consoles, floor carpet, rear deck carpet, door panels, back seat panels, A, B, and C pillars, stereo, leather wrapped steering wheel and gear shifter knob (only because these were in excellent condition), etc.

Bad news is, I didn't care for there method of making up for the trouble to us. He offered my friend 50% off the parts we pulled on Sunday (which was 80% of the interior). All that stuff added up to $50 with the discount. The remaining stuff at regular price added up to another $60 (even though it was only 20% of the interior). Now granted $110 for the entire interior is a good price over all, it hardly makes up for leaving us locked in there for 45 minutes while we figured a way out as we were freezing our asses off and starving. The least they could have done is let us have the interior for free, considering we very easily could have taken it for free that night.

This was the offer made by the assistant manager because the manager was "on vacation". He didn't even want to come out of his trailer office (which is separate from the check out booth). My buddy got his name and number. I'll deal with them a bit more harshly when the manager "gets back".  But at least I have this super rare interior either way. I'll get some pics up of it soon.

Just to add some more to this, Shawn at the W' board said he believed all earlier model GT's to have the 3.1 liter engine because he had never seen one w/ the 3.4 before(pretty rare I guess)..and another thing, my dad was browsing car lots after going to a doctors appointment yesterday and spotted a red 91-93 GT w/ a 3.4 in it, he said the car wasn't in that great of shape and was parked in the back of a local car lot.  I might try to go to the car lot and get pictures of the GT and see what they want for it tomorrow afternoon.  I'm not really interested in the car(unless it's very very cheap :wink: ), but I'll post info on the W' board just in case someone wants to pick it up.