USELESS CARS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19838, 7 January 1928, Page 10 (Supplement)

USELESS CARS.

THE REPLACEMENT MARKET. Satisfies reveal that 1000 cars were scrapped, destroyed or abandoned as useless in New Zealand last year. During the two years and nine months from February 1, 1925, to October 31, 1927, 2697 cars were deleted from the register of motor vehicles. These comprised worn out automobiles definitely condemned by their owners as unworthy of reconditioning and a few score of cars damaged beyond repair in fire cr accident. In addition to these scrapped cars, 2475 motorcycles, 839 trucks, 66 buses and 160 other motor vehicles were scrapped during the period from February 1925, to October 1927.

Tho register of motor vehicles also reveals that there are several thousand cars lying in garages awaiting the death sentence. These are cars which aie still on the register as vehicles in apparent working order without current number plates. On October 31, last, there were 108,729 cars on the register, but number plates had been issued in respect to only 101,353. It is thus obvious that since the orange and black number plates became compulsory on April 1, 7376 second-hand cars have been laid up in garages. As these cars were not in use when the tally was taken of the records in October, they were apparently vehicles which '.pent tho intervening seven months awaiting purchasers who never came. The majority of cars which stand unlicensed in garages for seven months may bo assumed to be in the decrepit class for which there is little prospect of a return to service. These old cars often stand for more than a year in idleness before they are passed out as hopeless. The absence of any recognised system of scrapping in New Zealand prolongs the life of the vehicle which is really beyond economical repair. In the United States it is generally recognised that the presence of these old cars reduces the replacement market. Dealers have actually tried to come to some agreement for the expurgation of the second-hand market by the scrapping of any car taken in trade-in which appears to bo so far gone that its resale would only result in a succession of dissatisfied owners and a continuance of over-stock-ing. The idea of scrapping is, of course, difficult to standardise. If the dealers in a city could initiate a scheme whereby they would scrap a car rather than sell it for £lO, they might find that in preventing useless stuff from circulating they were actually saving money. At present a car is usually sold and sold again.