Cash for Clunkers: Destroying past, present and future classics?

Undoubtedly the cash for clunkers scheme has been a huge success across the US, but at what cost? Many Classic Car hobbyists believe that this scheme could indeed wipe out some classic cars from both the past, present and even vehicles that could turn into future classics, and with $1 billion already spent on the scheme and more planned soon, could the future classic car market be in danger?

Once your car has gone down the Cash for Clunkers route, you have signed that cars death certificate from that point on. To stop fraud the dealer legally has to keep that vehicle off the road and they have to drain the oil from the car and replace it with two quarts sodium silicate solution and run the engine for around 7 minutes to permanently disable the engine, all dealer records will be reviewed by federal inspectors and the dealers would be fined a minimum of $15,000 per infraction. Now imagine that somebody with no real knowledge of cars has been driving around in what they would describe as a clunker for years and years, and this scheme comes along and they think “FANTASTIC!” and decide to trade in their car for a new one, and their car just happens to be a classic. We can only hope that the dealer informs them of the beauty that they own and tell them to sell it through a car auction, so maybe the old classics are safe? Well luckily the Government has secured the safety of any truly old classics by making the scheme only available to cars that have been manufactured within the last 25 years.

But how about cars from the 80’s, 90’s and now which could quite well turn into future classics? This is the problem. Right now they might be considered clunkers, but probably not in the future. Over at Edmunds.com they have compiled a list of cars which would benefit from being traded in, and one of the cars on the list is a 1991/92 5 litre BMW 8 Series, now if somebody popped in with a low mileage, great condition, high spec version of this vehicle, it is quite possible that a few years down the line it may be considered a classic. But in general that list is fairly good, but what about if the car you own only had a short production run or if your car was a limited edition? These will slip through the net and get destroyed unless the owner or dealer realises the status of the vehicle before signing up, and that’s what the classic car hobbyists are annoyed about.

So have any of you readers or anyone you know made use of the Cash for Clunkers scheme? If so, what vehicle was traded in? Have you seen any cars that would be classed as clunkers via the scheme which you would actually consider to be a classic? Let us know here at Product Reviews!

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