I’m always looking for vehicles with notably large final odometer readings in car graveyards, and this search becomes frustrating with American pickups and vans. I know plenty of these trucks racked up huge final mileage totals, but Detroit mostly stuck with five-digit odometers until ridiculously late in the game. Finally, here’s a Chevy Van in a Wyoming junkyard that shows better than 300k on the clock.
I’ve documented a discarded Dodge Caravan with 434,475 miles, and of course I don’t even bother shooting a Toyota Previa in the junkyard unless it traveled better than 400k miles. But as for real vans, like the kind I rode in during my Malaise Era childhood, it appears that either Detroit was too cheap to add another number reel to truck odometers or Soviet operatives in the Motor City arranged for those odometers to turn over after they hit 99,999.9 miles.
Look at the timing of the switch to odometers that could go to 999,999.9 miles: right around the period during which the USSR collapsed! Worth noting is that the VAZ-2101 Zhiguli aka Lada got a five-digit odometer. Coincidence?
I keep a spreadsheet with all the 300k-plus-mile junkyard vehicles I’ve documented, so I can sort the standings quickly. Right now, the Murilee Martin Junkyard Odometer Top Ten for vehicles made in the United States looks like this (that 434k-mile Caravan was built in Canada):
- 1996 Toyota Avalon, 949k miles
- 1996 Toyota Camry wagon, 583k miles
- 1993 Toyota Camry wagon, 442k miles
- 1990 Nissan Sentra, 440k miles
- 1991 Honda Accord, 435k miles
- 1996 Honda Civic, 435k miles
- 1999 Subaru Legacy RHD wagon, 431k miles
- 1997 Honda Accord, 417k miles
- 1992 Honda Accord, 409k miles
- 1995 Toyota Avalon, 389k miles
Sure, all of those are Japanese makes. For US-made vehicles bearing genuine American brand names on their badges, it goes like:
- 1986 Oldsmobile Calais, 363k miles
- 1992 Jeep Cherokee, 355k miles
- 1992 Jeep Cherokee, 352k miles
- 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, 350k miles
- 1990 Geo Prizm, 321k miles
- 1995 Mercury Tracer, 319k miles
- 1994 Chevrolet Chevy Van, 314k miles
- 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee, 314k miles
- 1990 Jeep Cherokee, 307k miles
- 1989 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer, 305k miles
So, today’s Junkyard Find is #7 on the 
!!! list and 80th overall.
GM built the third-generation G-Series vans from the 1971 through 1996 model years and they changed very little during that period. Grilles and exterior lighting configurations shifted around over the decades and electronic engine/transmission controls appeared, of course, but park a 1971 G-Van next to its 1996 descendant and you’ll see that they’re the same truck.
Ford and Chrysler kept their G-Series competitors in production for similar spans. The third-generation E-Series Ford was built from the 1975 through 1991 model years (and its facelifted fourth-gen successor kept the same chassis through 2014). Chrysler built its B-Series vans from the 1971 all the way through the 2003 model years.
If your 1971-1996 GM G-Van was sold as a Chevrolet, the passenger version got Sportvan badges and the cargo version was the Chevy Van. GMC dealers sold the Rally passenger van and the Vandura cargo van during that period. Ford did the same thing with its Econoline/Club Wagon vans, while Chrysler had the Dodge Sportsman/ Tradesman plus the pre-minivan Plymouth Voyager.
This van is a burly Flint Truck Assembly-built G30 one-ton with a 125-inch wheelbase, which had an MSRP of $16,327. That’s about $35,825 in 2025 dollars.
The 5.7-liter small-block V8 would look familiar to a Chevy Van salesman looking at the 350 in a new ’71 model. If this is the original engine, it was rated at 190 horsepower and 300 pound-feet. The ¼-ton and ½-ton G-Vans for 1994 had the 4.3-liter V6 as their base engine.
The final year for a manual transmission in a G-Van was 1989, so this one has the mandatory four-speed automatic. In theory, buyers of these vans could get a three-on-the-tree column-shift manual transmission all the way through the 1987 model year (and if you ever see an ’87 so equipped, please let me know).
ABS-equipped! The future has arrived™.
This one appears to have been used as a work van with locking cage for the cargo area. There’s insulation and cheap “wood” paneling in the back, so perhaps it spent its final years as a very spartan conversion van.
1994 Chevrolet G30 Van in Wyoming wrecking yard.
1994 Chevrolet G30 Van in Wyoming wrecking yard.
1994 Chevrolet G30 Van in Wyoming wrecking yard.
1994 Chevrolet G30 Van in Wyoming wrecking yard.
1994 Chevrolet G30 Van in Wyoming wrecking yard.
1994 Chevrolet G30 Van in Wyoming wrecking yard.
1994 Chevrolet G30 Van in Wyoming wrecking yard.
1994 Chevrolet G30 Van in Wyoming wrecking yard.
[Images: The Author]
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