It's over. The good news is that it no longer looks like Uncle Sam will stiff the entire U.S. dealer network. The bad news is that, like so many best intentions, it didn't quite have the universally beneficial results foreseen.
Yes, the Obama administration's Car Allowance Rebate System, a.k.a. Cash For Clunkers, is winding up with the news that, as I sit and type, 93 per cent of the dealer applications have been paid in full. This might not sound like much of a big deal, but the United States government was so woefully unprepared for the massive response to the CARS program (the initial $1-billion US) funding was supposed to last about three months; it barely made two weeks) that, in its first two weeks in August, just 10 per cent of the claims submitted were approved, igniting fears that the government might stonewall dealers.
In a move to quell those fears, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood accelerated the program, promising that all outstanding claims would be paid by Sept. 30.
The program had its successes. The U.S. Council of Economic Advisers claimed it saved 21,000 jobs and helped boost third-quarter GDP significantly.
Besides, anything that gets 69,887 Ford Explorers - the leading clunker trade-in - off the road has to be a good thing, right?
Nonetheless, one can't help but think the program didn't exactly go as planned. Besides the aforementioned underestimation of demand and slow payment, not all of the trade-ins and purchases were exactly as envisioned.
For instance, for some reason, a number of exotic cars, admittedly gas guzzlers all, were traded in for the program's US$4,500 rebate. This included a 1997 Bentley - a Continental R, no less - an Aston Martin DB7 of the same year and, is there no God, an '87 turbocharged Buick GNX of which only 547 were produced and one of the few certifiably collectible Buicks ever made. Throw in an Aurora Cars Ltd. Shelby Cobra replica and 131 Corvettes and you have a seemingly inexplicable culling of the sports car herd.
One supposes all these collectibles were worn/trashed/ridden hard and put away junky past their Maaco spray jobs and new brake pads rebuild point of no return. But, how exactly do you trash a 2006, extremely limited-edition Ford F- 150 so completely that it is no longer worth more than US$4,500? In 2006, the Roush Performance Stage 3's 450 horsepower of supercharged goodness could have cost you up to US$55,000 (a perusal of eBay suggests the price of a low-mileage example is in the mid-20s). Nonetheless, the Detroit Free Press says that two of the tire-smoking F-150s were traded in as clunkers.
More worrisome is that 16,263 new Ford F-150s were sold under the Cash For Clunkers auspices. Chevy sold even more Silverados - 16,330 - thanks to the program. I'm sure most of you are having a ``What gives?'' moment, wondering how gas-guzzling pickups (not to mention, unconscionably, a few Hummers, the Associated Press reports) were bought under a government incentive program aimed at increasing fuel economy and limiting all those nasty greenhouse emissions?
As it turns out, the bar for allowable SUV, minivans and pickups was set so low - there had to be a two-miles-per-gallon improvement for the trade-in to be allowable - that it was fairly easy, particularly with older '80s and early '90s trucks, to meet that requirement, sometimes even without sacrificing any power and/or cylinders/displacement.
Indeed, although initial listings of the cars purchased under the Clunkers program had the Ford Escape (in 10th spot) as the only SUV/pickup in the Top 10, it turns out that was a result of the CARS program considering two-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive versions of the same truck as two completely different models. Combine those numbers and the Escape vaults to the fifth most popular purchase, the Honda CR-V to the sixth best-seller and the Chevy Silverado and Ford F-150 rounding off the Top 10 in eight and 10th spots, respectively.
So, yes, the fuel-sipping Toyota Corolla was the best-selling vehicle under the CARS banner with the equally frugal Honda Civic in the runner-up spot.
But the Ford Focus, in fourth position, only accounted for 494 more units than the fifth-spot Escape. And the aforementioned Silverado's 16,330 sales were only about 40% behind the Corolla. Adding insult to injury, both the Silverado and the F-150 outsold Toyota's Prius, the environmental movement's poster child, which ranked 14th on the list.
That has to be disappointing/sobering news for a program specifically engineered to promote the more frugal of car offerings over gas guzzlers.
The media's contention that the U.S. public has adopted a ``green'' groupthink may be a little premature. A tax that significantly elevated the cost of gasoline might have had a more dramatic effect.
dbooth@nationalpost.com
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