Evening star., 1927-12-04
BY FRANK j. CARMODY.

Good cars, when they die, may 60
to college boys in some parts of the
universe, but not in Omaha, Nebr.
Out there. they go to the junk yard
not to be returned to the traffic
stream in the form of wise-crack hiv-
vers, but to be wrecked beyond the
widest dream of the wife of the
worlds worst driver.
When a car is wrecked in the
wrecling yard of the Omaha Automo,
bile Trade Association. it stays
wrecked.
This is how 1t happened!
Omaha automobile dealers, pro-
gressive group of men judging by the
way their idea is catching hold in
other cities, decided that the used car
of certain class was a tWo-way
menace about which something ought
to be done. In the first place, they
recognized that such cars made back
IN the days when cars did not need
brakes because they could not catch
a pedestrian anyhow, were a distinct
danger to modern traffic, which has
slowed up as result of increased
weight.
Blocks Sale Of New Cars.
car definite menace to new car
sales. They reasoned it out in this
fashion,: The most avid new car pros
pect was disinclined to risk encounter
ing an embattled junker at every
other street corner so, if they wanted
to sell him a car, they had to stop
disposing Of the junkers to $25 and $50
customers.
Through establishment of a wreck.
ing yard they saw an opportunity to
render two Services-one public, the
other private.
SO, they established wrecking
yard of their own. They had tried,
as other dealer groups have tried, the
process of selling these cars to junk
dealers, but they found, as other
dealer groups have found, that given
stock of ancient used automobiles,
the junk dealer cannot resist the
temptation to go into the used car
business. Instead of performing a
service for the automobile dealer, the
junk man becomes his competitor.
Many were the amusing situations
that developed as a result of the junk
mems ambitions. For instance, q
for SIS. The junk man would turn
right around and sell the thing as a
used car for $25. Then, the car buy
er would take his purchase back to
the dealer, who originally sold it and
try to trade 1t in for, maybe $35, on
still another used car.
Finally, the dealers decided that
some junk men could not be trusted.
This decision also was a factor in es-
tablishiDg the wrecking yard.
Wreckage Made Complete.
Today, when an Omaha motor car
dealer gets one of these campus CAB.
riolets he sends it straight to the
wrecking yard, where all the connect
ing rods are disconnected, where the
bearings are relieved Of their bur-
dens, where clutches no longer have
anything to clutch, where fly wheels
are relieved of all responsibility for
flying, where differentials find that it
no longer makes any difference,
where, in short, the car Is torn limb
from limb without the necessity of
having to run headlong into a tele-
graph pole.
After their crew had wrecked quite
a few cars Of this character, Omaha
dealers made the startling discovery
that these highway Hesperuses were
not all bad--one had a good crank
shaft, another piston that was capa-
BILE of ringing up a few thousand more
miles, while still another yielded a
universal joint that apparently would
stand anything.
So, the wrecking crew was assigned
the additional task of separating the