Scrapping Old Cars

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18207, 30 September 1933, Page 9

Scrapping Old Cars

ALTER having suffered a slump for the last three years, the American motor industry' is now unable to produce sufficient vehicles to meet the now-ear demand, and the revival of buying lias brought with it a remarkable problem in the disposal of the oltl ears which have become worn out. Of 1 lie total of tM.B’dNTO cars on American roads at the end of it. is calculated that MS. 5 per rent, are due til be scrapped, and within a year the total will be nearly half. To dispose (if those lias outgrown ordinary wrecking enterprises, and official action has been taken by the automobile industry to create official wrecking enterprises, 1~1 of which arc now in operation in -I I cities. Oars are taken over from dealers under bond that they will not lie resold. and ceililie.ates of demolition are given entitling the dealers to a bomilv from the manufacturers. The cars are then stripped of stilt useful parts, and the remainder converted into scrap metal. This scrap metal is loing Hindi to stop the waste of iron, calculated at g.n00.000 tons a year under old methods, and this would reipiire the production of 10,000,000 tons of raw material annually to replace. In fad, scrap iron now constitutes 50 per cent, of the annual production of steel articles in the Vnited Staies. One large motor manufacturer operates his own scrapping plant, equipment of which cost £IOO,OOO. After stripping, the remainder of a ear is hydraulically compressed into a mass about the size of a bale of hay and passed to furnaces from which come the steel for ite-w ears. It is estimated that to replace all Ihe worn-out ears on American mails would take three years at the peak production rate of 5,500,000 ears a vear reached in 1920.