His company removes the hazardous chemicals from the cars and puts the vehicles into a mega-shredder, which reduces cars to pieces the size of a fist. SA Recycling sorts the scrap into steel, aluminum, copper, rubber, plastic, glass and other materials, then sells it to local or export brokers.
"We feel that a shredder or a recycler is the natural solution for where these cars should end up," Marcucci said.
He expects a 10% increase in volume from the CARS program from both clunkers from dealers and scrap from auto dismantlers.
Not all junkyards and auto dismantlers will benefit from the clunkers program. Some are too small to make the process of getting the cars and reselling them worthwhile. Others say there's too much paperwork and hassle involved. And some say the cars aren't worth much without the engines.
"Who wants to haul and try to sell parts of low-demand vehicles?" said Carlo Viola, the owner of AAA Foreign Auto Parts in Sun Valley, which sells used engine parts. "They're disposing of the one item that has the most immediate value."
Viola runs an open telephone line that allows auto dismantlers to talk to one another and search for parts they might need. He says some shops don't think the cars are worth buying because they are, well, clunkers -- and headed for extinction anyway. If thousands of minivans are taken off the road, who will need minivan parts?
But the participating junkyards, scrappers and auctioneers aren't concerned. They see an opportunity and they're planning to take advantage of it.
"These cars will be newer and fresher than typical junk cars," Adlen of Aadlen Bros. said.
In his lot already, the unmarred clunkers stand out from the wrecks that line rows upon rows, their hoods up and their insides picked clean.
"A lot of the people in the business are optimistic the prices will be good because the product is better than we thought," said Bill Tiedemann, vice president and general manager at Total Resource Auctions, which re-markets cars to junkyards and scrappers.
At the Aadlen Bros. lot, the new cars contrast sharply with the beat-up junkers like the mauled Audi A4, its air bag hanging limply outside the car where a door used to be before what looked to have been a harrowing accident.
One car, a fully loaded 2002 Lincoln Continental with a sunroof and leather seats, could be worth as much as $5,800 at a dealer trade-in, according to Kelly Blue Book.
But Blue Book price is one thing and the real market is another. Some dealers won't even accept gas-guzzling SUVs as trade-ins because they can't sell them at a profit.
"There's really no demand," said Hector Habash, a salesman at South Bay Ford Lincoln Mercury. "That's the whole purpose of the cash-for-clunkers program."
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