From the Cockpit – A Call to Arms

I make no apology for returning to this subject, after the hints we dropped in the last issue of Moss Motoring By now most of you will have heard about the proposed “clunker” bills circulating around Washington D.C. Such legislation would remove older cars from the road, and have them crushed to reduce air pollution levels. In California, Unocal Oil has completed a program that crushed over 8.300 pre-1971 cars, whereby they paid $700 each for the cars that were supposed “gross polluters”! There’s no word on how much pollution was created by the diesel belching wreckers, and car crushers that were necessary to destroy over 8300 cars. So why would Unocal want to get rid of cars that they could put gasoline into? The answer is simple…

Ex-President Bush took an easy road to dealing with whining oil and power companies. The Clean Air Act requires such companies to repair or modify existing facilities to meet new, stricter emissions standards and obviously that would cost companies millions of dollars.The oil companies protested to Bush and his solution, at their request was to allow the companies to crush old cars, instead of cleaning up their own facilities to make them less polluting! They earn “pollution credits” for the number of cars they crush.

Because the oil and power companies find it cheaper to take your car, rather than clean up their own mess, eventually the Unocal experience could reach even further. Some bills floating around Capital Hill call for 1975 and older cars to be scrapped, and some even call for any car built before 1980 to be given up to save the oil companies from having to modify their emissions equipment. It all sounds unbelievable, but there is also a bill out there that would ban the manufacture of replacement parts for cars built before 1980!! Also
such bills also seek to Include all older cars, not just the ones on the road. Think about that for a minute..if a 1967 MGB is resting behind a barn In non-running condition (with plenty of valuable donor parts) how much pollution is it creating? Or imagine the recent case we heard about an Austin Healey 3000 that had not been driven for 20 years, and on which the new owner was prepared to spend a lot of money to bring back to original. Only to finish up in the crusher?

More pollution would be created by hauling these cars away and crushing them rather than restoring them or recycling their parts. An obvious hurdle for the classic car killers is what to do with non-crushable parts. What will they do with all the old batteries, tires and oil? These can cause much harm if not handled properly.

As the national fleet of vehicles on the road ages, more and more of the heavier polluting cars will be removed from the road. How many cars from the ’50s,’60s and ’70s arc being used as dally drivers? The cars that the clunker bills target will naturally be removed from the road in the next few years-and the few that are driven on a limited basis by collectors and enthusiasts, such as you, will make up a minuscule percent of the fleet.

The persecution of the old, classic car is not a logical solution to pollution reduction. The vast majority of British Classic cars are maintained to a high degree, we have seen this at meeting after meeting we have attended. In fact an EPA planning director even admitted that the oil and power factories would still be able to pollute as much as the old cars would have, had they been left on the road. The big guys are pointing the finger at you little guys and gals out there, and saying you are a “gross polluter”!-to save having to clean up their own act-they don’t really want to clean up the air, they want to save money at your expense!

Do you think the legislators considered the impart of outlawing older cars? The restoration market, the replacement parts market upon which many of you depend, many small specialist businesses and maybe even this free newspaper would probably be wiped out by such legislation if enacted. Many car clubs and organizations have begun to fight back, but your help is desperately needed. I give full credit to Year One Inc. and their public relations director Barbara Hillick for most of the above information, also they have a great package that explains in depth the clunker bill situation. This is mandatory reading for all Clubs and individuals, concerned about what is going to happen if things stay as they are. We’ll do our best to keep you posted on developments-after all our Interest is your interest. In the mean time, send a 9″ x 12″ envelope and $2.90 for postage and Barbara will send the packet to you for your club to consider. Write to: Year One Clunker Packet. P.O. Box 129, Tucker. GA 30084. and don’t say that I didn’t warn you!