By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

690,000 vehicles were sold under the Cash For Clunkers program, but according to Edmunds, most of those cars would have sold anyway during the course of the year. According to their calculations, the program only really resulted in 125,000 additional vehicle sales for 2009, which means it cost taxpayers $24,000 per car sold. Pretty cool, huh? Read the full article at CNN Money

By Jim Brennan

UDMan

Cash for Clunkers is over and the government and many dealers proclaim it as an overwhelming success. But at what cost? Many rather unusual and possibly valuable cars were sacrificed during the program; a few that will make the car enthusiasts among us cringe.

There were a number of questions raised when scanning through the list published on September 9th by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). To be eligible for the Cash for Clunkers program, vehicles were specified to only get 19 miles-per-gallon or less, measured by their previously published EPA rating. Yet a few vehicles that were submitted generally get better fuel mileage than the benchmark set by the program rules.

As troubling as that was, it is underscored by the list of truly desirable enthusiast cars that were traded in as clunkers. This raises some troubling questions as to the reasoning behind the transaction. Scanning through the list, here are 12 different vehicles that should have been saved from their eventual fate of being scrapped. These 12 cars will be met with the usual questions as to how this was allowed to happen in the first place, or what kind of person would trade such a vehicle, replacing it with a Hyundai or a Toyota? Continue reading about the “Dirty Dozen”, with details about each one at Automotive Traveler.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

The numbers have been tallied and it looks like the Cash for Clunkers program aided not only the sale of small economy cars, but also helped bump truck sales and even moved a few Hummers! As an example, Ford sold 22,338 examples of its Focus and more than 16,000 F-150s. Curious.

Other suprise sales numbers included the 15 Hummer HT3s that were sold, and 1,152 Smart cars that were moved off lots. To show just how steep the battle is for truck sales, the Toyota Tundra sold only slightly more than 2,000 units during the program. The Prius, more than 15,000.Chevy sold 16,300 Silverado trucks.

Despite the fact that so many trucks were sold the government is still calling the program a success and the Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood proudly proclaimed that Clunkers, “helped consumers ditch costly gas-guzzlers for safer, more fuel-efficient vehicles that are much better for the environment.” He forgot to add, “and can tow more.”

Meanwhile, some dealers are still not paid, and new-car sales sank like the Titanic when the program ended. No one is reporting how many people really went back to work due to Clunkers or how much that cost us per job. Some scrapyards are so overwhelmed that they are crushing cars without ever parting them out, and others are suffering from reduced scrap prices.

Here’s the Associated Press story on the sales figures.

By Mike Musto

RideLust.com

Purchasing a new car has all the makings of a good mystery movie. Lies, deceit, cold hard cash and a cast of characters that couldn’t be made up even if you tried. You start off with the best intentions, thinking this will be a wonderful experience that will enrich your life. You read magazine after magazine in the hopes that the information contained within those pages will help you decide on the vehicle that best fits your needs. You ask friends, family and search the internet on a relentless quest to make sure that nothing in the way of information escapes you. You pump yourself up with a mental Rocky Balboa style workout and in the end you are convinced that you will win the upcoming war with the dealer.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "Why I Hate Buying a New Car…" »

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Most of the videos I’ve seen of car being clunked have been fairly undramatic, but this old F-150 goes out with one hell of a bang. Watching it made me wonder if anyone’s actually been injured while destroying a clunker, because it seems like there’s some definite potential for injury when you’re intentionally blowing a motor. Have you guys heard about anyone getting hurt while putting down a car?

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

I’ve received a few emails about a recent L.A. Times story that’s been making the rounds with a quote from YT in it, defending the 25-year exemption inserted into the federal cash for clunkers program, thanks to SEMA’s lobbying efforts. For the story, Ralph Vartabedian and Ken Bensinger rounded up a bunch of folks who thought their VW Beetles should qualify for cash for clunkers and used those stories to question the 25-year exemption.

Aside from the libertarian who claims that destroying older vehicles immediately results in increased values for the remaining vehicles (attrition-induced rarity != valuable, as any Vega owner can attest), the authors also support limitless crushing of old cars with some dubious-sounding stats from the California Air Resources Board that claim a 1965 Chevrolet Malibu produces 400 times the smog-forming pollutants of a 2010 Malibu. Continue reading over at Hemmings.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

About time.

So let’s look past the environmental malarky. Let’s look past the “give the middle class a break” hoo-ha. The real reason for this, we all know, was to help out the automakers. Yes, I do want to see autoworkers get back to, y’know, working.

And the Detroit Free Press tells us that cash for clunkers succeeded on that point. We returned 1,350 autoworkers to the assembly line. Woohoo!

Now let’s do the math. $3 billion divided by 1,350:

That’s $2.2 million per job. And 247,000 other people lost their jobs in roughly the same time period. Okay, you’ll argue for a trickle-down effect adding jobs at suppliers. So, what, double the number of jobs added? That means we spent $1.1 million per job.

Either way, that was totally worth destroying this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Right?

By Chris Trout

Troutster52

There are few vital elements of our daily living that fall into disrepair with as much character as the automobile. No matter what the cause of this mechanical or aesthetic decomposition, this process creates the most hated and most beloved character in the story of the automobile. This historical relic is called a beater.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "The Value of a Beater" »

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Just like it is scripted, the Cash for Clunkers fraud is about to expose itself in the most public of ways. As triumphant announcements hit the wires from around the auto-manufacturing globe, other announcements, like the one from Edmunds citing tanking sales also hit the wires. It’s a a perfect storm of fail, and we’re all in the eye of it.

In typical fashion, companies that should take a sensible approach to rebuilding inventory that was moved by the Cash for Clunkers national fraud campaign will instead ramp up production in factories to the point of having employees working overtime. Amazing.

Here’s a USA Today story with GM’s announcement.

This announcement came literally hours after Edmunds.com released a statement showing an analysis of sales data which it used to conclude that the program is dying a quick death in terms of sales volume. The Edmunds piece claims a 15% drop in sales activity last week alone. Sounds like the perfect time to crank up the factory! Let’s flood the market with stuff no one will buy again!

Here’s the Edmunds analysis.

Just when you thought these companies were in a hole before, they’ll be in the septic tank in a few weeks if the Edmunds analysis is correct.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Had David LaChance, Hemmings patron saint of lost British automotive causes, spotted this XJ6 in the Clunker lot at Crossroads Ford Mercury in Ravena, N.Y., he’d have probably strapped himself to the bonnet and demanded safe asylum for the car in Coventry or maybe a pardon from the Queen.

It is a shame that a car which retailed north of $50,000 when it was new in 1995 is now on its way to a sodium silicate tea party. Other than a few unfortunate dents and a general lack of housekeeping in the cockpit, the XJ looked like it should be cruising to the country club not the crusher. Just 93K on the clock too. The EPA rates this XJ6 at 15 city and 22 highway with a combined mpg of 18, so it’s unfortunately a target for the government’s newest corporate/consumer welfare program. Continue reading at Hemmings