Cash For Clunkers Becomes Law, Will Never Go Away

Hemmings

So the inevitable occurred. President Obama signed cash for clunkers – as part of the war spending bill – into law yesterday. It’s now officially called CARS (Car Allowance Rebate System), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which will oversee CARS, is already warning about scams that look like official information sources but which are really just email and phone number harvesters.

I’ll reiterate again: We’re glad SEMA was able to get a 25-year provision inserted into the law; doing so prevents any car older than 1984 from being crushed and thus going through the natural automotive life cycle. But we’re still opposed to this legislation on behalf of all future collectible vehicles and all future vehicle collectors. Continue reading at Hemmings

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Posted at 8:29 am in Cash For Clunkers, Dan Strohl, Hemmings

Comments

sarahsmile90
Jun 26, 2009 at 7:42 am

This bill is not going to “boost” new car sales for the domestic car companies. What a waste of time and money.

retroman
Jun 25, 2009 at 3:59 pm

So cars like my ’66 Mustang are safe, but they can crush cars like my Spirit R/T?? That’s bogus. Good R/Ts are hard to come by as is, and finding parts can be a hassle at times. Just like you said Dan, they are destroying future collectibles, or in my case a car that already was collectible from day one. Not every rare car will be worth a ton of cash, but for the sake of legislators, I hope this one comes back to bite alot them as the “one that got away.” Go ahead, crush a Buick GNX, that way I can laugh in revenge as you cry someday.

Rob Einaudi
Jun 25, 2009 at 12:01 pm

They don’t have EPA numbers for cars before ’84

GTwildfire
Jun 25, 2009 at 10:07 am

People who typically buy new cars do so after the last new car they bought is a few years old. Getting 3500 for a clunker may be enticing to some, but despite this making regular car payments isn’t appealing to many. Lets say someone gets 3500 for an ’89 whatever, subtract that from 20 grand and there’s still 16.5 grand of payments to be mae as well as full insurance coverage until payoff.
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It’s not gonna be an avalanche in the availability of older cars.
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regarding the ’84 cutoff, I wonder why it wasn’t a 25-year restriction instead, so it would advance with each passing year. Too complicated for legislators?

fireball22
Jun 25, 2009 at 10:05 am

Austin, the original list that was featured on an earlier blog was a suggested list by the fine folks at Consumer Reports, as I recal. It wasn’t a set “hit list”, it was a list of cars the editors thought should be among the first to go. However, we can’t control who actually turns in specific cars and who actually receives them and makes the final decision on their eventual disposal.

Austin Knight
Jun 25, 2009 at 9:27 am

As long as they keep anything and everything that could ever be collectible off of the list, I don’t mind. The only car on the list that I recall as being bothersome was the Firebird, I believe.