JUNE 13, 2015: FAREWELL TO A HARDCORE MOPAR GUY-TIM FROM HEAVY METAL AUTO WRECKERS

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I met Tim Lynch in the late 80s-I was restoring a crashed ’79 Little Red Express and the word on the street was always the same-Heavy Metal Auto Wreckers was a goldmine for Mopar guys.

 

Car guys kept referring to this out of the way yard because they said the guy who owned it was a hardcore Pentastar addict.

 

They were right.

 

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Heavy Metal was definitely off the beaten path just outside Trochu, Alberta. You took a highway out of town and hoped like hell you remembered where to turn—I never got that right.

 

There was a long road into the Heavy Metal yard and Tim had a fairly nondescript shed for an office and shop back in the late 80s and early 90s. He had a very cool Club Cab Little Red Express custom under construction back then and to his credit, he got it done.

 

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Tim was also a Harley guy and he made an impression when you first met him. He looked like an extra in a biker movie and my first thoughts were that Tim would be a hard guy to negotiate with and he was the wrong guy to get mad.

 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Tim was one of the most casual owners I’ve ever met in the world of auto recycling and he was a downright friendly guy.

 

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His prices were exceptionally fair and he was particularly generous with fellow Mopar brothers. He could tell you exactly where the donor vehicle was in his large and rambling yard. It was usually a direction like “go up about halfway and turn at the blue Charger and it’s right beside the 64 Dodge”.

 

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Tim never gave bad directions because he knew every inch of his yard and he had a computer-like memory for his inventory. He’d tell you whether the left or right quarter was gone on memory alone.

 

We call guys like Tim car gods in the world of old iron because he spared customers an unwelcome, fruitless search.

 

Mopar guys loved Tim’s yard because he had everything. He would pick up an unloved 70s B-body 4-door sedan just as fast as a very much loved E-body Cuda or Challenger.

 

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Heavy Metal was also home to a fleet of full-sized Mopes like big old Chryslers and Dodges from the less travelled paths of the hobby.

 

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There was also a generous supply of A-bodies for the discerning buyer in Tim’s yard because he truly believed in the “throw a wing over every Mopar” mantra.

 

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Most guys could only dream of building a massive collection of odd and varied Mopar project cars but Tim had the motivation…and the space to pull it off.

 

Sadly, I didn’t get out to Heavy Metal much after 1995 because I was heavily involved in a 1959 Plymouth project and Tim didn’t have much in the Mopar fin car department. He had a few but Tim lived more in the 60s-70s muscle car world.

 

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Tim was always frank about what he had so you never made a trip out there on spec because he would wave you off if he didn’t have it.

 

Heavy Metal wasn’t 100% Mopar because you could find a fair number of old Chevys, Ponchos and Fords out there. Tim was clearly a fan of all old iron but he had a clear hierarchy because Mopars stayed in the yard when there were mere slivers of metal left on the body.

 

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Other brands didn’t fare so well because the last time I was out there a fairly complete ’64 Ford was flatter than a pancake and Tim’s only comment was, “It’s just a Ford”.

 

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That last trip out to Heavy Metal was memorable in many ways. The weather was brutal even for late February but when Jim and I got there the cold wasn’t a factor because a trip to Heavy Metal was so interesting the thermometer didn’t matter.

 

The sky and the ground were the same color that day so the pictures looked photo shopped. Tim was amazed that two guys would wander around his yard for hours during a blizzard but this was one of those glorious days only real car guys appreciate.

 

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Unfortunately that would definitely be the last trip out to Heavy Metal because Tim passed away a few months ago and the business is winding down after a massive liquidation sale a few weeks ago.

 

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Guys like Tim are becoming rare because regulations and changes in demographics have profoundly affected the game so massive yards like his are replaced by portable metal munching machines.

 

For me, Tim will always be the  hardcore Mopar guy with the great yard-he’s going to be missed.

 

Jerry Sutherland

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