Eighteen and out
Britain’s Royal Automotive Club Foundation is floating a proposal that would call for the scrapping of all cars more than 18 years old.
Rationale:
The RAC Foundation believes that a carefully-designed scrappage scheme would have a double benefit of boosting the new and second hand car industry, whilst helping to make road transport greener by removing the most-polluting vehicles from the road.
I am reasonably certain that they’d find some way to make an exception for Lord Suchandsuch’s 1952 Bentley R-Type Continental. Besides: what new industry? Britain’s biggest automaker these days is — who? TVR? Morgan? Everyone else has long since sold out.
Bad ideas, of course, have a way of crossing the oceans, so I expect someone to come up with something similar Stateside before too awfully long. Hint: The “most-polluting” vehicle isn’t one that’s rolled up X number of years; it’s one whose engine is so utterly shot that you can see its exhaust from half a mile back. Scrapping those miserable hulks would do more for the urban environment than any amount of “greening” folderol.
fillyjonk »
20 October 2008 · 8:33 am
Already some of the counties around Dallas are paying some kind of a “bounty” on cars older than, IIRC, 12 years…the idea that it gets the polluting vehicles off the road.
They do not, apparently, see the difference between a well-maintained older car (my father used to keep cars for a dozen years, easily…he was just very careful about regular oil changes and preventive maintenance) and a POS that’s belching tarry smoke all over the road.
I’d welcome removal of the smoke-belchers; it seems far too intrusive to me to tell someone that their lovingly-maintained 1970s-era Caddie has to go….
unimpressed »
20 October 2008 · 3:38 pm
Why can’t these idiots see the appeal that some of these older cars have for others? There are a lot of classics and antiques out there that run far better and cleaner (not to mention LOOK far better) than most, if not all, of the new personality-less econo-boxes in the last dozen years.
My personal favorite (the ‘55 Chevy Belair two-door–I’ve mentioned this before) would be destined for the recyclers because it’s over -fifty- years old–four times the minimum age of the stuff they want to scrap.
Charles Pergiel »
20 October 2008 · 8:57 pm
Now is the time for all closet hot-rodders to come to the aid of their idols. Old cars are disappearing due to rust, accidents and worst of all, scenic vista beautification schemes. Don’t let them close your local junkyard!
soubriquet »
21 October 2008 · 3:40 pm
The worst environmental damage a car ever does is during and prior to its manufacture. The mining and smelting of metals, the energy required to make, cast, stamp, forge, fold, machine, weld, paint, and finish a car uses vast amounts of energy and produces pollution.
The finest green credential a car can have is longevity.
This idea would rid the world of existing and future classics, and what would replace them? More shiny identikit boxes, with a finite life, and an expensive re-manufacture cost in terms of the planet’s resources.
Oh sure, there would be exempted classics… ?
But todays classic was once just an outdated car, a clunker. In the 1950s, the Bentleys and Bugattis of the twenties and thirties were often scrapped as old things that were no longer of value. Todat the survivors are woth millions.
My 1962 Land-Rover is today worth more than it was when I bought it twenty years ago, what will your Prius be worth in 46 years?
Brook »
22 October 2008 · 4:21 am
My rural town of approx. 8000 (Castlemaine, Central Victoria, Australia) is regarded as the Hot Rod centre of Australia. We have a very large number of beautifully restored hot rods and have annual shows to display them. Seldom do you see any emitting any smoke. The engines purr.
In stark comparison are the ancient, rusted rattle-traps driven by the greenies of the town, often with balding tires, engines coughing and discharging clouds of noxious gases.
Ah greenie, thy name is hypocrisy.
Greenie Watch »
22 October 2008 · 7:21 am
Eighteen years and then the scrapheap for cars in Britain…
As the driver of a 1963 Humber Super Snipe Type 4, I object strongly to this. The Humber costs me a fortune to keep on the road but I love it! And lots of people come up to me and express their pleasure at seeing it. Fortunately, I live in Australia an…
Grant »
23 October 2008 · 11:43 am
Ah, the RAC.
I remember when it had something positive to say about motoring.
BTW – TVR were indeed for a short time the last remaining British owned full build manufacturer, all the others having passed into non-British ownership or failed, as in the case of Rover Group after it escaped the clutches of BMW.
Sadly the owner of TVR saw writing on a wall and sold to a young Russian, the son of a Millionaire/Billionaire working out of Canada. Within 18 months or so the company went under. And as I recall he then bought the remains and the name back for a small sum. One has to assume that he had his reasons.
Morgan, at a handful of cars per annum may now be the top of the tree, depending on how many Caterham clients buy ready built.
Aston Martin might be in with a shout of claiming the top spot but are mostly foreign owned still. Of course if the financial markets don’t recover quickly they too may have some problems, given their marketplace.
I could foresee the Tata Nano becoming a global phenomenon.
Grant