Eric over at Classical Values links a video of a Volvo “Clunker” being destroyed (There are links ot additional videos in the comments), then describes his response:

Sadness (yes, I’m not alone there), because even though I’ve never been a Volvo driver (I can remember howling with laughter when I saw George Carlin ridicule them as “safe cars”), this was obviously a perfectly good car. A lot of technology and human effort (to say nothing of raw materials) went into it, and someone could have used it.

…

I see the destruction of that engine as symbolizing pure, naked, raw, disgusting abuse of power.

I realize it will sound harsh, but I think that car was more useful than the useless bureaucrats who ordered its destruction.

I have a tendency to anthropomorphize automobiles to what is probably an extreme extent^[a]. I treat my cars almost like pets a lot of the time, and both times I’ve taken a car to be traded in a dealer lot, I’ve been hit with a huge sense of guilt. These were both vehicles that had served me well (even loyally, to my anthropomorphizing mind), and I just took them to the dealer and abandoned them. The emotion was very similar to what I suspect I’d feel if I had to take a beloved family pet to a shelter because I simply couldn’t keep him anymore.

I won’t even discuss my reaction to seeing^[b] the remains of the minivan that I totaled after hitting a patch of ice.

In addition to all of this, I understand and share Eric’s reaction to the pure wastefulness involved in this program (ostensibly being supported by environmentalists, who’re supposed to be interested in conservation, for goodness sake!). Plus, while I’m not a “car guy”, I do have a fondness for older cars, and envy those who have the ability, patience, time and money to take an older car and restore (or remake) it. The idea that potential project cars^[c] are simply being unmade is abhorrent to me.

1. Oddly, I never named a car until I met my wife, but that didn’t stop me from immediately adopting the names she gave both of our cars. [↩]
2. Seeing on a regular basis, even, since it sat at the bottom of our driveway for a while before the truck came to haul it away as junk [↩]
3. Most of which are, as evidenced by the fact that they were driven to the dealerships, perfectly serviceable even without being restored [↩]