Oh, I dunno, some clunker
The Brits have had their scrappage scheme going for a week now, offering £2000 for cars over the age of ten if you buy a new car. And you should see the things that are being turned in for Hyundais:
One Hyundai dealer was amazed to see a Jaguar XJ-S being sent to the scrapper in exchange for a new i10, while another crushed an XJ6 to make way for an i20. BMWs, Audis and Mercedes cars and vans were relatively common sights on their way to the automotive knacker’s yard (34, 22 and 32 respectively handled by Hyundai dealers this week) as were Mazda MX-5s (six in total), MGFs (seven) and several Saabs.
This is made more incredible by the fact that cars turned in for scrap must be more or less functional: they must have MOT (or SORN if used only off-road) declarations. Then again, some cars were closer to less functional:
Rovers with head gasket problems were the most common cars turning up at Hyundai dealers on the end of a tow rope, while one 94 year-old Ashford man was late picking up his new i10 because a wheel had fallen off his Citroën on the way to the showroom!
The UK scheme is the most flexible thus far proposed: it’s intended not as some fatuous carbon-conserving aid, but purely as a means of hyping new-car sales. It’ll never catch on here.
