{"id":12765,"date":"2009-09-24T15:19:24","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T20:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=12765"},"modified":"2009-09-24T15:27:48","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T20:27:48","slug":"clunkers-program-claimed-collectibles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2009\/09\/clunkers-program-claimed-collectibles\/","title":{"rendered":"Clunkers Program Claimed Collectibles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Would<\/a>
Would you pay $4,500 for a 1997 Bentley Continental R. That's all one owner got for the luxury sedan, originally priced around $300,000, as a Cash-for-Clunkers trade-in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My friend Ralph had to spend a Saturday afternoon in his garage getting his old beater running again before he could trade it in under the recently-concluded Cash-for-Clunkers program.<\/p>\n

And he wasn\u2019t alone.\u00a0 The federal program, formally known as the Cash Allowance Rebate System, was designed to get older, gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing clunkers off the road by offering owners $3,500 or $4,500 vouchers, depending on the mileage they were trading in on.\u00a0 And, by and large, that was a pretty good deal for most of the roughly 800,000 vehicles the government got off the road.<\/p>\n

\"Trade<\/a>
Trade In Your Old News Source!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But government records suggest that at least of the few of the trade-ins might have drawn a fair bit more if their owners had really looked for the best possible deal.\u00a0 And some of the so-called \u201cclunkers\u201d were pretty exotic and potentially desirable collector cars.<\/p>\n

Among the vehicles traded in was a 1997 Bentley Continental R which, the Detroit Free Press notes, originally went for a solid $300,000.\u00a0 Our own quick search of the Internet shows similar models going for anywhere from $40,000 to more than $100,000.\u00a0 Why would someone take just $4,500?\u00a0 Maybe the payoff for a bitter divorce?\u00a0 A pair of bad reading glasses?\u00a0 Hard to tell, but surprisingly, that was by no means the only vehicle seemingly traded in for a fraction of its potential value.<\/p>\n

Other vehicles on the list included a 1997 Aston Martin DB7, a 1992 BMW 850i, a 1999 Mercedes-Benz C43 AMG and a limited-edition 2008 Ford F-150 Foose pickup customized by Chip Foose.\u00a0 Another buyer traded in one of only 547 Buick GNX Grand National muscle cars ever built.<\/p>\n

The list of oddities includes the fact that 37 vehicles traded in through the Clunkers program were less than a year old.\u00a0 Considering that the typical car loses less than a quarter of its value during the first 12 months, it\u2019s hard to figure how someone came up with that decision.<\/p>\n

And while the goal of the CARS program was to get older gas guzzlers off the road, how to explain the fact that there were a number of Minis, Scion xDs and other small, fuel-efficient models traded in, along with the big Lincoln Town Cars and Chevrolet Silverado pickups.<\/p>\n

Unlike a traditional trade-in, the government required that Clunkers be \u201ckilled,\u201d by replacing their engines\u2019 oil with a sodium silicate mixture that would typically seize up within a matter of minutes.\u00a0 The carcass was then supposed to be shipped off to the junkyard, stripped of usable parts and accessories, then crushed and shredded for recycling.<\/p>\n

Was the program worth it?\u00a0 Remember the old adage about asking a dozen economists for their forecast?\u00a0 Well, the debate over the program\u2019s cost and benefits will likely go on for some time.\u00a0 But one thing seems certain: after pushing new car sales to near pre-recession heights, the market has plunged<\/span><\/strong><\/a> back to doom-and-gloom levels, as TheDetroitBureau.com reported, earlier today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While most cars traded in under Cash-for-Clunkers weren’t worth the $3,500 to $4,500 paid out, others, including a ’97 Bentley, were worth a fair bit more. Collectors will be lamenting the loss of a Chip Foose F-Series pickup and one of only 547 Buick GNXs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12765"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=12765"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=12765"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=12765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}