The Lincoln Continental with leather seats, the shiny gray Mercedes-Benz, the immaculate Lexus ES 300 and the impeccable Cadillac DeVille seem out of place in this San Fernando Valley junkyard, where wrecks of VW bugs and pickup trucks bare their smashed hoods like fangs at the pretentious newcomers.
They may be luxury cars in name, but now they're just like the other clunkers surrendered for car-buying cash in the government's Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS.
It might seem like a waste. But to the scores of junkyards, auto auctioneers and scrap recyclers across the Southland, they're as good as gold.
"It's going to be a bonanza," said Nathan Adlen, co-owner of Aadlen Bros. Auto Wrecking in Sun Valley, one of the largest auto dismantlers in Southern California. "As good as [CARS] is for advertisers, dealerships and related auto businesses, it's going to be better for us."
Along with other industries, the auto junkyard and scrap metal businesses have been suffering through the deep recession.
As more people decided to forgo new-car purchases and hold on to their old cars, auto dismantlers also saw a decline in volume. They had fewer cars to put on their lots, which led to fewer parts to sell. Aadlen Bros. laid off five of its 100 workers this year.
The price of scrap steel dropped last fall from $550 a ton to $125 as carmakers and others bought less recycled steel, said Bruce Savage, vice president of communications at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries.
Now the federal cash-for-clunkers rules are boosting activity. Under the program, people can trade in their gas guzzlers and get $3,500 or $4,500 off the price of a new car
By law, dealers must destroy the engines of the clunkers -- by lethal injection with a sodium silicate solution where the oil should go -- before selling them for scrap or parts. And as clunkers are starting to be shipped off dealer lots in greater quantities, competition for them is getting intense.
Auto dismantlers want the vehicles so they can sell the parts. Scrap metal recyclers want to crush them into tiny fragments of metal, which they sell locally and internationally. And auto auctioneers want to serve as middlemen, selling them to the highest bidder.
All see a bargain in the cars, which they can buy for $50 to $250 each.
"I've had a lot of e-mails and phone calls from people interested in the cars," said Terry Miller, general sales manager of Galpin Motors in North Hills, the largest Ford dealership in the world.
