WHITE, Ga. » Not too long ago, Old Car City USA and its thousands of deceased autos was a junkyard like so many others that dotted – or blighted, depending on one’s point of view – the American landscape. Nestled in the ridges and valleys here about an hour north of Atlanta, the salvage yard was a veritable heaven for do-it-yourselfers looking to save money by opting for used over new.

Old Car City is a traditional junkyard no more. It exists as a decaying repository of the auto industry, lovingly neglected and open for viewing – $15 to browse and $25 to take pictures.

But just as Old Car City is no longer a traditional junkyard, neither are most others. The mainstream shops have gone through a rethinking of sorts to become what the trade prefers to be called: automotive recyclers.

Separating themselves from their predecessors, they computerize inventory, adhere to increasingly strict environmental standards, maintain precise records and choose not to keep snarling Doberman pinschers at the entrance gate.

"There are junkyards still out there," said Michael Wilson, executive vice president of the trade group Automotive Recyclers Association, with more than 3,000 members. "We just don’t represent them."

While there are no clear statistics on how many old-school junkyards remain in the United States, Wilson said that his group had grown since the recession, even as the industry had consolidated.

Used-parts places were compelled to adapt because of tougher environmental and land-use restrictions and in response to the increasing complexity of vehicles. Gone are the days when many items were interchangeable among autos of different models and years.

Some parts must be electronically reprogrammed. More specialists are required on the staff of recycling centers, particularly because of technology-intensive hybrid vehicles.

"It’s not as easy to take a vehicle right into your facility and dismantle it," Wilson said.

At Old Car City, any dismantling is mostly the result of decay. Dean Lewis employs a small crew known by colorful nicknames to look after matters, including Rocky, who lives on the premises; Monkey Wrench, the mechanic; and Fast Eddie, 75, who looks like someone from "Duck Dynasty" and who is the unofficial night watchman and writer-performer of the yard’s official bluesy theme song.

They are the curators who maintain, if that is the word, about 4,200 automotive carcasses, allowing Old Car City to bill itself as the "Worlds Largest Knowd Old Car Junkyard," as the sign out front declares with intentional misspellings.

Operating since 1931 – first under Lewis’ parents – it has little competition in the category of most unusual.

The cars, which were produced from 1918 to 1972, draw curiosity seekers, usually with cameras, from around the globe. The other day, visitors from Sweden turned up. Russians are regulars. Others have come from as far as Australia, New Zealand and China.

More common are patrons from New York or the West Coast. "They’ll jump on an airplane, fly to Atlanta, rent a car, drive up and stay sometimes three, four days," Lewis, 77, said.

The vehicles, in various stages of decomposition, are only part of the lure. Blending in with the pines, oaks, moss and other vegetation, which Lewis leaves largely untouched aside from keeping the walking paths clear, they generate stunning visuals.

Nature has created color schemes in hoods, roofs and door panels that would be challenging to replicate in an artist’s studio. It has also functioned as sculptor and designer, draping the cars in greenery and wrapping them with trees.

Nicole Nicholson, a photographer and co-owner with her husband, Matt, of Dim Horizon Studio in Woodstock, Georgia, has ventured to Old Car City about a half-dozen times since they discovered it two years ago. A recent photo, featuring a character who is more Mad Max than Fred Sanford, looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic world set among the rusting ruins.

"Something that unique, pristine and well-kept, and yet having Mother Nature have a heavy hand in it, you’re not going to find that elsewhere," she said.

Some pine trees have pushed vehicles far enough off the ground to allow room for someone to slide under and inspect engine leaks or drain the oil, while others have embedded themselves into tires or smashed through windshields.

It was 30 years ago, Lewis remembers, that he predicted offhandedly to his children that the business would become "a showplace instead of a sales place."

Much later, Lewis, a creative thinker and doer who has set aside a room on the property to contain several hundred plastic foam coffee cups decorated by his ink designs, decided to expand the concept. The grounds would double as a combination time tunnel museum and graveyard, where customers could relive their youth, admire the machines that once ferried them about and mourn their passing. Background music is provided by chirping birds and by "chimes" made of hubcaps and tailpipes.

At some point, visitors started asking permission to take pictures, most memorably a man who posed a woman wearing a gown in a broken-down Dodge pickup. Later, Lewis spotted a photograph taken in the yard selling for $600.

"Everybody is making money but me," he thought before deciding to charge a higher admission for those with cameras.

Eventually, Lewis wearied of haggling over the prices of parts and recoiled at the thought of keeping electronic records, saying his computer skills began and ended with turning one on.

About five years ago, he converted exclusively to a gallery.

"This sure is more fun," he said. Once, he allowed some photographers to linger beneath the light of the moon until 11 p.m. "There are people who jump up and down when they see this place."

To Lewis, the decision to abandon sales was affirmed when, shortly after he turned down a tempting bid for a 1967 Pontiac GTO, a woman called to ask for that specific model and year as a backdrop for a photograph.

A copy of another photo is framed and cherished. Lewis occasionally stares at a ballerina’s grand-jeti between a couple of 1947 classics, a Buick and a Cadillac.

He said, "I could have sold this place and made enough to move to Hawaii," or, as he drawled, "Hah-wy-yee." Instead, Lewis is considering a second home – in the middle of the world’s largest knowd old car junkyard.

© 2015 The New York Times Company