indeed my garage is 4.4m long, too short for a XM
XM found for cheap are common. It is sad but lots are wrecked like that in France

As I just read in the news, the "cash for clunkers"-law, as it's called in the USA, has passed the Congress. 250 000 cars shall be wrecked now.


I've learned a new word: clunkers. Funny, that we use it in German, too, but with annother meaning - a flippant term for diamonds and jewlery.

It won't work as well as they want it to no doubt. Only a few people are actually going to do it. It is really only good for people on the fence about getting a new car, it won't sway people who hadn't even thought about buying new. Even with the voucher people will still have to come up with 10-20k dollars, and no one has that to spend (and certainly not the kind of people being targeted). It is rather stupid and will likely be a huge flop like in a couple of other places that have tried it.

If they were giving away 4,500 dollars CASH instead of a new car voucher, than it would be a completely different story. But of course they're not doing that...

They originally wanted to get 500,000 cars, but many are saying they will struggle to get even 200,000 because the law is so restricted. Just pointless and stupid is what it is.

@taxiguy: the same, as you wrote, we have thought in Germany, too. It was the opinion of the majority. But what had happened shortly later? It was a real hype, sometimes the people were getting hysterical about that. They only have seen, that they can get 2500 € from the government.
So until now 1.2 million (or even 1.4 million?) cars were wrecked about this "Abwrackprämie".
The most inscription-forms were written and sent to the authority, so the paperwork is getting less, but still you can see a plenty old old cars, delivered to the dealers for wrecking.

A friend from the K 70-club, who works at a VW-dealer, has told me, that at the beginning of this offer, they had a real line-up with dozens of cars up on the street to their shop. The customers were really mad, not to be too late. They had to organize a coffee-bar and have given out numbers to have a system for the organization.

But he has said, that there was no reason to be sad or mad as an old-car-fan, they didn't get any real classic for wrecking. Some really good Golf II or Audi 80 from the 80ies, too good for wrecking, but not real oldtimers.


Here the actual clip of Volkswagen:
http://www.horizont.net/kreation/tv/pages/protected/show.php?id=2546
The Golf II-fans are a bit pissed about it.

Oh, and I just have found a new pic of this campaign:
http://www.onetoone.de/homepage/VW_Abschied_nehmen_lohnt_sich_16022.html
A girl with a Daewoo Nexia. She wrote "Machs gut, Alter" - "So long, Oldie" with lipstick on the front screen.

A Youtube about cars, which were actually crushed over her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9sZ4GF9_oM

As to be expected:
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/0,1518,652716,00.html

Since the Abwrackprämie was dropped out, the selling of cars in Germany was broken down on 50%. Similar in the USA, where the "cash for clunkers"-bonus has ended, too.

So today the car-companies and -dealers have the same problems as before again.