Milestones Icon: Blake’s Small Car Salvage Inc.

It takes a lot to divert people’s attention from one of the most majestic views of the Front Range.

Something like a 10-foot tall tyrannosaur made of car parts.

The vicious looking beast stands guard over the entrance of Blake’s Small Car Salvage Inc., a salvage yard on a hilltop just outside Erie.

Curiosities like the dinosaur, a perimeter wall made of old VW buses and school buses and cars festooned with lights to celebrate the holidays have made Blake’s famous and earned it abundant press coverage, including features on the CBS Evening News and a profile in a Japanese travel magazine.

Daniel Blake started the company in 1975. A sports car enthusiast when he was a student at the University of Colorado, Blake’s first experience in auto salvage came when he bought an old vehicle to strip for parts.

Since then, Blake’s has grown to cover 12.5 acres. Thousands of cars, rusty relics and late model vehicles alike, are arranged in neat rows on the property. The number of possible parts is too high to bother counting.

In a business sense, Blake’s is a typical auto salvage yard. Repair shops, parts dealers and individuals call up looking for everything from engines to the knobs that control the air conditioner. Blake’s inventories vehicles and major parts with a computer system, and it is part of a major online database of used parts.

What makes Blake’s unique is the sensibility of its owner and his wife, Jill, who live in a self-built home on the property.

The Blakes believe in reusing everything, the less conventional the use, the better.

Old vehicle hoods and roofs have been turned into the roofs of buildings. A couple of weathered VW buses have been stacked to form a viewing platform in the center of the yard, where the Blakes watch the sunset and can see Fourth of July fireworks from several communities.

In their home, a camper van from the 1940s has been turned into a cozy nook, and out back a VW bus has been converted into a working sauna.

The Blakes’ environmental beliefs led them to install solar panels and use recycled oil to heat their buildings. They also participated in an Environmental Protection Agency project to determine what environmental guidelines salvage yards should follow.

Blake’s renown can be a little problematic at times. The Blakes focus on their business and clients. Photographers and collectors hoping to drop in and scrounge around regularly contact the company. The former are told they can take pictures if they want to pay a fee. The latter are turned away politely.

on Facebook on LinkedIn