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"The "Cash for Clunkers" bill was introduced last week by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA.), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Charles Schumer (D-NY) in a bid to help the economy by boosting spending on car purchasing and increase putatively more sustainable vehicles on the road.

The program would exchange crummy, old, heavy and polluting junkers for coupons between $2,500 and $4,500 for a private owner or $50 for dealers and scrappers. The cars must have been registered for at leaast 120 days prior to trade in, get 18 MPG or worse and be in generally drivable condition. The hope is that with coupon in hand, you'll buy a new car to both clean up the air and stimulate the economy."

While this is aimed at $500 beater Granadas & Chevettes, it is hard to imagine Government stopping there. This might possibly start to creep into hobby cars as well. If a person can turn in a running "Parts car" for a $2500 to $4500 dollar coupon, will there be any more project cars in 10 years?

Fight this legislation folks, before classics are gone forever.

The "Clunker Bill" shows a lack of understanding of "sustainability." The environmental cost associated with building a new vehicle outweigh the savings associated with increasing your fuel consumption by anything but an astronomically high number (think 150%). So unless people are trading in old Suburbans for Vespas, you'll be hurting the environment more than helping it. The one benefit is the auto industry stimulus that would occur from added sales. However, it would be a one-time hit -- not a real solution to the many things that really ail the industry.

Environmental groups have tried for years to get rid of the Auto hobbyist by legislating chemicals they use in small amounts at home garages, & local zoning restrictions for how many autos can be on private property etc, etc. This slide of hand maneuver labeling it as "helping the auto industry" is really aimed at environmental reasons for getting rid of Old cars.

Classic & older cars get so little use per year, they are but a minor contributor compared to industrial polluters. Thus old cars are the scapegoat for the large polluters.

In Ontario the government is offering $300 as an incentive to owners of cars built before 1996 to have them scrapped! The argument is of course that pre 1996 cars pollute more than newer cars. I think the real agenda is to encourage people to buy new cars to help the ailing auto industry which is the number one industry in this province. It would not surprise me that if this incentive programme fails the next step will be legislating old cars off the road altogether with the exception of antiques which will be regulated as to where they can be driven and when. I drive a 1983 Volvo 240 which I realize is a more polluting car than anything being built today but I live in a small city and drive it about 5000 Kilometers (3000miles) per year or less. Where and when I can I walk or bike and really am concerned about our global environment. Will I help save the world by buying a new car? I think if the government wants to really get serious about auto pollution the first concern should be to develop more urban passenger rail systems to help alleviate the traffic volumes commuting in and out of cities. A old parked car isn't polluting when it isn't being driven but is a convenient scapegoat.

This all reminds me of my theme song----


Dennis Leary

My father was a fool blooded Dennis Leary. I am only about half Dennis Leary, as it diminishes through each generation. I might actually have a normal child!

i had a 1966 dodge dart with a 225 slant six.

that car got over 20 mpg, and passed all emissions tests. how is that a clunker?? that was with a one barrel carb and no cats. just a pipe and muffler.

find me a new car that can do that!!

Portlandon wrote:

"The "Clunker Bill" shows a lack of understanding of "sustainability." The environmental cost associated with building a new vehicle outweigh the savings associated with increasing your fuel consumption by anything but an astronomically high number (think 150%). So unless people are trading in old Suburbans for Vespas, you'll be hurting the environment more than helping it. The one benefit is the auto industry stimulus that would occur from added sales. However, it would be a one-time hit -- not a real solution to the many things that really ail the industry."

Speaking of "sustainability", consider the following:

The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to, "DECREASE OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL." Last year, 31 years later, its annual budget was $24.2 BILLIONS, it had 16,000 permanent federal employees and 100,000 private contract employees.

Have we gotten noticeably less dependent upon foreign oil?

Pretty efficient, huh?

This is the point where anyone with prior knowledge and the ability to add two and two together to get four would be slapping their foreheads and asking themselves, "What was I thinking?"

Instead, we're in the process of turning what remains of our banking industry and our auto industry over to a bunch of similarly forward-thinking bureaucrats.

I'd feel a lot better about the sustainability of the human race if we didn't just keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again - all the while expecting a different result.

My Packard is sustainable as far as I'm concerned. I won't pollute the atmosphere as much with it nearly as much as the congressmen, senators, corporate executives and sustainability, "experts," flying around in their corporate jets and building plants to produce grossly overpriced merchandise that won't last until it's paid for if I drive it for another 40 years - unless we see fit to create yet another bureaucracy to, "regulate," it for, "environmental," purposes. How, "sustainable," in the overall scheme of industry and economy is another self-serving, non-productive giant bureaucracy?

Guscha,

I am completely for keeping the environment clean. After all, all life on the planet depends on clean air & water to live.

you said "Of course, we always can move to other areas (what is an industrial polluter compared to a volcano eruption and so on)...This is true, we could go back and forth with this. However the latest victim to the pollution police are Cows producing methane through gas and manure. I'd hate to be the cow that has to wear a diaper, or maybe a catalytic converter hanging out the rear end of a cow is the answer?



The amount of miles that a registered Packard or any car 25 years or older is driven a year does not put out enough pollution to warrant taking it off the road. Blaming older cars is the same as blaming cow farts for the environments problems. There is a TV judge who coined a phrase I feel sums it up..."Don't pee on my leg & tell me its raining."

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I wonder how Jay Leno feels about this??
The man has a now legendary car collection that keeps growing.

Jay Leno's take on legislation against classic cars:

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/sep/14/local/me-smog14

Comedian Jay Leno, the host of television's "Tonight Show," called Assemblywoman Sally Lieber's office earlier this year and delivered a monologue that wasn't funny at all.

Lieber, a Democrat from Mountain View, was sponsoring legislation to end a California exemption that spares many old cars from smog checks. Leno, an avid car collector, considered the bill stupid, and let Lieber's legislative director know it.

"He was really angry," said the staffer, Marva Diaz. "I thought someone was playing a joke on me. He didn't sound like the person I had seen on TV."

As they await the governor's decision, car aficionados around the state are accusing politicians of trying to grab headlines with a measure that would make only a dent in the smog problem.

"Politicians are often ridiculous, and this is an example of how ridiculous they can be," said Chuck Abbott, president of the Southern California chapter of the Pontiac-Oakland Club. "It's going to have an infinitesimal impact on air pollution, and it's going to make a lot of people's lives miserable in the car world, all so some politicians can say they did something about smog."