[taildragger]

Cash for clunkers was designed to eliminate the $2000 starter car. It was resoundingly successful. There are no cheap cars for kids. The cars they cag get they have no knowledge, tools, or place to repair so they can drive them. Then, there’s insurance that costs more than the car. And, of course, there’s $4/gallon gas. It costs me $12-15 just to drive my Marauder into town. (But I was able to buy a VW TDI, which gets 40 mpg. Kids can’t do that.) All of these problems are brought to you by liberal government.

And more...

Cars are so complicated, I remember a time when some of my friends were flip artist, they would find an old Impala convertible and pick it up for $50 bucks because the owner had no idea it ran bad because of bad points. New points and my friend sells it for $400. Can't do that today, ditto that going to the Junk Yards and getting parts for your High School Clunkers. Gosh today's High School parking lots are better than one car in our driveway. Add to that Vehicle History Reports etc., man it would be a rare kid today that rebuilds a clunker from pocket money, when it used to be the norm. On top of it, The High Schools don't promote Auto Shop worth a darn. One Mega HS near me, has one row of "Greasers" way in the back of the kids parking lot, maybe a 1/2 a dozen of them with 4 X 4's out of thousands and kids and hundreds upon hundreds of cars, the rest are all pedestrian shoe boxes...

Damn Fedzilla has taken all the fun out of it...

[Gen.Blather]

“Can’t do that today, ditto that going to the Junk Yards “

The feds have actively been trying to eliminate junk yards. They want only recycling places run by the original equipment suppliers, Ford, GM, etc. They want all the parts removed, tested and boxed. Incredibly expensive.