OLD CAR PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 49, 26 August 1933, Page 23

OLD CAR PROBLEM

AMERICAN JUNK YARDS

AN IMPROVED SYSTEM

Manufacturers and dealers in "America to -whom the obsolescent car has been a growing source of distress, have, made considerable progress this year in solving tho problem. The salvage division of the National Auotomobile Chamber of Commerce has: : named. 72 junk yards in 44 cities of the • country as official repositories. ■ f , ' y These yards, undcr;_,bpnd ; -, ,to the chamber, take old cars'froin dealers-and: that the Veljicles will not lie resold as such. A.-certificate, of deniqli-' tion. issued to the- dealqr/entitles"hini to a bounty from' the manufacturer, plus the small amount due from the junk yard for the scrap metal. . Participation by manufacturers in the plan is voluntary. This system replaces a previous arrangement under which cars were stored by the' dealer until a' manufacturer's representative arrived to witness smashing of the vehicles. Now, instead of receiving mutilated cars in tow, tho gunk. yards, get vehicles from which usablo parts may be salvaged. The .dealer thus gets a higher price for junk material and manufacturers are saved the trouble of stocking parts for old-model cars. Since the disposal of "crocks" is made easier, the flow of vintage vehicles from public to junker is expected to increase. Under the old system the dealer was tempted to-patch up a -wheezy trade-in and resell it to exuberant ehaneetakers whose,.financial position was about equal to,the car's safety rating of zero. Junk yards, too, found ready customers for decrepit vehicles which could be used in bargaining with car retailers. . ' These undesirable practices, it is held, will be- lessened .^considerably by the current increase in co-operative dealersalvage'yards. Th'eyards are operating as an extension of the older "highwaysafety plan," whereby the cars for junking had to be kept until the coup de grace was witnessed.