My uncle always told of him and another kid helped a neighbor get an Auburn running good enough to drive it to the scrap yard and his Mothers dad scrapped a K Model Lincoln that still looked cherry. The big cars weighed more so they were prime pieces for the war effort.
I'm going to call the Office of Production Management and give them a piece of my mind. 1941, Hell. I was working fast food along a major highway in 1974 and stopped looking out the window cause I couldn't stand to watch full blown classics, in addition to cherry Fords, etc., going into town, headed to the scrapper. At least in 1941, it went to a good cause. Especially the next few years, too.
Ive taken more than my share of vehicles to the scrapper. probably more than a thousand. Mostly 4 doors helped pay the bills and feed the kids. The thing is if no vehicles where ever scrapped that wouldn't have the value of a tank of gas today. The scrapping is what made those that remained desirable. One I remember I bought in Jonesboro Ar. I was chainsawing helping to clean up from a record Tornado. was paid $4.50 per hour ( big money in 74)! a tree had fallen on a 60 ford 4 dr. I bought it for $10. On Sunday drug it home on my tow bar. The auto trans was bad. I sold the 352 FE to George Simington for $40. kept the radiator rear end and aluminum bell housing starter ect. Monday hauled the Body back on my 66 ford F600 to Hummmelstien scrap at Jonesboro and got $27.50.
If that article was Sept 17 of 1941, then the big scrap effort hadn't even got rolling yet. At the time of the article the majority of it would have just been to keep the mills pumping out enough steel to support our allies.
some of my German ancestors & relatives. lived in the Poston Iowa area. they refused to contribute to the scrap drive. The non German locals and the National guard came and took by force every thing they had that was metal. right down to the cast iron skillets and forks and spoons. Its just the way things happened.
Were they running scrap drives before Pearl Harbor? I don't know. I do know when the national government really wants to do something, they can get it done. If something isn't happening, something isn't getting done, you can bet they want it that way for whatever reason. Pearl Harbor was attacked in December of '41, by February strict rationing of all consumer goods had started. By April, you couldn't even purchase a bicycle, empty toothpaste tubes (made of metal) had to be exchanged to buy a fresh tube, radios, washers, implements, all the civilian factories & industries had been nationalized and converted to producing ships, planes, tanks, etc. Automobile production was halted almost entirely, food items of all kinds were rationed, gasoline allotment for most people limited to 4 gallons a week or somesuch, 35 mph national speed limit, and no one could own more than five (5) tires. Penalties were $10,000 fine and up to 10 years, real money in those days.
Lend Lease Act started in early 1941, the U.S. was sending war materials to England before the attack on Pearl Harbor
I’m lucky my 38 Coupe survived then. It had a Shell Oil gas station sticker on the door pillar from Mariana, PA. Glad it escaped this scrap drive. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The Germans were sinking Liberty ships before Pearl harbor happened, and them "jalopys" yielded about a ton of scrap.
Around that time a lot of those "Jalopies" might bring 20.00 running and driving on a good day. When I was a kid the foothills around here had a lot of old car bodies laying in the sage brush because the tin didn't bring anything for scrap and the chassis was worth a lot more as scrap without the body on it. I think my neighbor down the road has a lot of those that he drug home. On a lot of those the wood frame bodies were falling apart when they were less than 20 years old.
During the Depression something like 1-2 million cars were bought and destroyed by the Govt. to dry up the used car market. Saw a pic in Hemmings of cars stacked several high before burning
I remember reading what George was referring to about "old" cars being scrapped to solve the "used car problem". Seems like there were too many cars by then. The car companies didn't want you driving an old car, they wanted to sell you a new one.
The big 3 built no new cars 1942-1945, Dad told me that one of my Uncles had totaled his 39 Chevy while he was gone to war. There was only 2 used up cars for sale that he could find in the area, ended up buying a Buick with a pile of miles on it that was nothing but trouble. I wish I could have found the picture of him holding a bottle of Beer in his Army service uniform, one foot resting on the front bumper of the 39 Chevy. Couldn't find it after he passed.
My Dad bought a '39 Ford during the War. After the War he put in a new Merc crate motor. Mom hounded him into selling it in the late 50s.
The "Roosevelt Recession" started in the fall of '37 and resulted in hundreds of thousands of auto workers being laid off, mainly because of a used car glut. The "National Used Car Exchange Week" was held from March 5 to 12 1938, and was an all out effort to sell off or scrap as many old cars as possible, especially the 11 million or so obsolete old cars, many of which were Ts and As, that didn't have modern equipment. The automakers spent over 1 million dollars to promote the event, and Ford led by selling more than 57,000 vehicles.
The Jalopy Journal
