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Congress isn’t totally against collector cars. Maybe.

appreciation?

Yeah, I’ve been busting on Congress hard lately for their various attempts to pass a cash for clunkers program, and I will continue to do so either until it’s defeated or I expire. But a few representatives and senators do seem to understand and appreciate what the owners of classic and collector cars go through.

First, Senator John Tester, a Democratic Senator from Montana, who last month introduced Senate Resolution 97, which would declare June 1, 2009, as Collector Car Appreciation Day. The resolution would recognize “that the collection and restoration of historic and classic cars is an important part of preserving the technological achievements and cultural heritage of the United States” as well as the fact that automotive restoration “provides well-paying, high-skilled jobs for people in all 50 States.” Unfortunately, the resolution will likely die in committee before the proposed date of the event.

Next, while it doesn’t seem as though H.R.2057, the Motor Vehicle Owners Right to Repair Act of 2009, should be something collector car enthusiasts should care about, the fate of future collectibles hinges on legislation like this (just as it does with cash for clunkers legislation). It’s something observers already point out - if the computers and sensors and other sophisticated systems that power new cars conks out, and nobody has the equipment or training to repair those systems, then how will they become collectible? How will somebody restore a Corvette ZR1 25 years from now if they don’t have access to the car’s trouble code chart? As Bob Barr and Ralph Nader (I know, I know) wrote in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed piece earlier this week,

While similar legislation has been introduced in previous Congresses but not voted on, it takes on additional urgency in these tough economic times, especially with the closing of many auto dealerships.
This aptly named bill would allow independent repair shops to compete for the business now guaranteed only to dealer-controlled establishments. This is important because car manufacturers now severely limit the number of repair shops that are allowed to have the tools, diagnostic codes and updated repair information essential to being able to repair late-model cars.

It’s easy to say that this won’t affect the ‘67 Corvette in your garage, and so what. And you’d be right. But your son and his son will likely collect significantly different and newer vehicles, vehicles that this legislation would help keep on the road.

Of course, it hasn’t passed yet. Introduced last month, H.R.2057 currently sits in committee. Let’s hope it progresses further.

As for cash for clunkers, the most recent news is that the compromise legislation hammered out a couple weeks ago has now been attached to the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R.2454). Bad news that it’s yet another step toward realization, but at least it’s not on the proposed fast track that some legislators wanted. CNN predicts that the bill will leave committee by the end of the week and head for a vote in either late June or early July. There also comes word that Dianne Feinstein, who doesn’t like the current c4c legislation because it’s not green enough, has proposed her own, more stringent cash for clunkers legislation.

Meanwhile, cash for clunkers continues to attract widespread opposition. The L.A. Times and the New York Times both recently criticized the plan, the United Recyclers Group and the Engine Repower Council joined the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association in issuing statements opposing the legislation, and Mike Bumbeck at Clunkbucket has taken a stance against it:

The throwaways of automotive culture have sparked motoring trends that over time have become part of our cultural fabric and created giant economic engines of their own. Back in the ’40s and ’50s it was kids tearing the fenders off ’30s Fords and hopping up the engines to make gow jobs, or what we now know as hot rods. Affordable Toyota Corollas and talented drivers begat drifting in Japan. The trend has sparked global enthusiasm for precision driving and older rear-drive cars. American drag racers shoehorning high horsepower supercharged engines into all manner of Fiat Topolinos and Willys coupes created the legendary Gassers. Even from the wheezy Volkswagen Beetle sprang industry built up around aftermarket performance and style.
Clunkers and the other castaways of the automotive world are what keeps vintage motoring interesting.

Nobody can tell what direction vintage motoring will take in the future. But I can guarantee you that whatever direction it takes will be severely disrupted and curtailed by a federal cash for clunkers program.

It’s getting grim: Your daily cash for clunkers update

clunkers? Or collectibles? doesn't matter - Congress wants to send them all to the scrap heap

We pretty much knew the answer to yesterday’s question of whether Congress will pay attention to the grassroots opposition to cash for clunkers. Of course they won’t, and of course they’ll steamroll this legislation right through any roadblocks on the way.

* Reading today’s news reports from the Detroit Free Press, Canada’s Globe and Mail and Edmunds AutoObserver, it appears the cash for clunkers legislation will indeed be separated from the Waxman energy bill - either in a standalone piece of legislation called the Drive America Forward Act or as part of the emergency spending bill, as reported earlier - and skip the House entirely, going straight for the Senate (if attached to the emergency spending bill). Perhaps the most frustrating thing about recent events is that we haven’t seen any legislation officially introduced by Congress since they announced the compromises with Barack Obama last week; instead, they’re trying to shuffle it around in a game of politics to get it enacted as fast as possible to please their buddies in the auto industry, thus disallowing any real chance for the American public to understand and comment on it.

* Yet not all is lost. TTAC, now firmly opposed to cash for clunkers, spotlighted Dianne Feinstein’s growing opposition to c4c, but keep in mind that she co-sponsored the cash for clunkers legislation that received a walloping defeat earlier this year. The Miami Herald, in their story on cash for clunkers, seems to be the first in recent memory to present the old car hobbyists’ point of view by quoting our friend Stuart Gosswein from SEMA. And we can now count the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association among the opposition: MEMA, like the ASA, would like to see a repair option inserted into the legislation.

UPDATE (14.May 2009): The ARA released another statement today on cash for clunkers warning that any such legislation could potentially open up a loophole in which the public could gain access to buy back the “clunkers” bought by the program through salvage auctions that allow the general public to bid in 35 states. This is the first we’ve heard of such a loophole, and find the argument kinda thin, but if such a loophole exists, we think it would be a good thing for individuals in the collector car hobby, allowing them to rescue useable cars and parts from the crusher, just as California’s system currently does. Though by no means would we throw our support behind cash for clunkers on the basis of such a loophole. Instead, it looks like the ARA just wants to shore up their industry’s business.

Of course, Congress could make both us and the ARA happy by shelving this cash for clunkers legislation entirely and allowing American vehicles to proceed naturally through their lifecycles.

Commenter Marc Tyler cc’d us on an email to President Obama with Marc’s ...

probably won't be crushed, but never underestimate an American's desire for something new and shiny

With no apologies to Farago for the title, we continue to round up reactions and arguments for/against cash for clunkers. If by now you haven’t seen that this is the most ill-begotten, shortcut-derived piece of legislation on Congress’s plate at the moment, then perhaps you need to read deeper.

First, John Voelcker over at GreenCarReports continues his patsyism for cash for clunkers. He goes after one of the environmental arguments against cash for clunkers, pointing out a Duke University study that claims to calculate just how much of an increase in mileage a car needs to offset the energy expended while producing the car. If the math behind the study escapes you for the moment, don’t worry: It’s simply not necessary. The study misses the point of the environmental argument that creating more and more new cars by artificially shortening the lifespan of old cars generates pollution and waste of energy, while keeping an old car on the road simply does not. The longer one can keep an old car on the road, the fewer hits the environment takes during a new car’s production.

As to John’s argument that it’s of no harm to the collector car world, I’ll point out as I’ve pointed out before: Of course cash for clunkers doesn’t threaten 1969 Camaros or any current collector car. Any idiot can see that crushing a collector car that’ll bring $15,000 at auction in exchange for a $4,500 voucher simply doesn’t make sense. And the wording of the bill prevents people from crushing inoperable parts cars. the danger to the collector car hobby is that future collectibles - those cars not currently considered collectible, but which may someday become so - will be crushed. Take the example of the Jeep Comanche. Unless you’re talking about the Eliminator variant, nobody currently considers the Comanche collectible, and I bet many people currently nursing one around will jump at the chance to turn theirs in for a $4,500 voucher. But when enough time has passed to allow people to see those trucks through the haze of nostalgia, they will become collectible, and if everybody crushes their Comanches now, nobody will enjoy these trucks in the future. And if nobody appreciates these vehicles, then they’ve become another soulless consumer product that we can just discard at whim, thus overflowing our landfills.

And as to the argument that cash for clunkers is voluntary and thus nothing to worry about, think back about three years, when everybody was buying houses with interest-only mortgages. Nobody forced people to make those stupid decisions - they were absolutely voluntary - but those mortgages were available, and greedy/impatient/nearsighted/ignorant people snapped those mortgages up. The same thing’s going to happen should cash for clunkers become law.

Moving right along, Sam Shaw over at Age of Pericles took some time to examine H.R.520, one of the three cash for clunkers bills that’s been formally introduced in Congress this year. He presented the bill in plain English and found that it doesn’t pose much of a threat to vehicles much older than 1984. But he does note how it will affect low-income families:

Many High Fuel Consumption Vehicles manufactured after 2002 still run reliably, but are worth less than the $4,500 offered via voucher. As such, no High Fuel Consumption Vehicles (read: SUVs and minivans which are great for carrying families) will be available for cash-strapped families already reeling from the recession for less than $4,500.

Looking forward to his analysis of S.247.

Commenter Marc Tyler cc’d us on an email to President Obama with Marc’s views on c4c:

Dear President Obama,
I’m writing today regarding the “Cash for Clunkers” program you recently expressed support for. While superficially this may seem like an environmentally friendly program, the reality is more complicated.
If done properly, when a car is turned in, the voucher received must be for a vehicle with better fuel economy than its predecessor. This in itself may cause problems, as fleet milage has degraded in the last couple decades, so the older cars, in general are lighter and more fuel efficient than the newer, heavier ones. For instance, the 1993 Geo Metro XFI got city / highway mpg estimates of 53/48, the Toyota Yaris’ fuel economy numbers are 34/40. What could the owner of an old Geo trade in for? A Prius at 48/45? Will the Metro be exempt from any cash for clunkers program until a more economical vehicle comes along?
Not only will the new car have to get better milage than the old car, it will have to mitigate the tons of CO2 emissions embedded in the vehicle during its manufacture. The amount of CO2 released during a car’s manufacture may be as high as 30% of the carbon dioxide released in the life of the vehicle. This is yet another environmental hurdle to be overcome by the new vehicle.
I do understand that the Cash for clunkers programs are intended as a stimulus for the auto industry, not as an environmental program, although it has been marketed as green. I propose instead of subsidizing the top of the industry, which has shown itself to be a failing model, stimulate the auto industry from the bottom up, the ‘regular guys’ you so often mention in your speeches. Instead of replacing a perfectly serviceable fleet with a newer, and in many ways less efficient one, encourage entrepreneurs to maintain and improve the efficiency and safety of older vehicles. Look to Neil Young’s 1959 Lincoln Continental. The plug-in diesel electric hybrid gets 100mpg where previously it got 10, thanks to a small shop in Wichita Kansas.
Business cycles come and go, industries come and go, civilizations come an go, as ours surely will, but this is the only Earth we have. Although it may run counter to the big business model, I ask you to, in this case, think small, and keep in mind this model:
Reduce
Re-use
Recycle
Sincerely,
Marc Tyler

And we applaud Marc’s effort to bend President Obama’s ear.

Finally, satire blog Wine & Excrement holds no punches in its article titled Cash-for-clunkers plan expands to include charmless wives.

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Congress isn’t totally against collector cars. Maybe.

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