None of these beautiful automobile failures were traded in as part of the Cash for Clunkers program. There’s something wonderful about people lovingly maintaining these monuments to faulty engineering, distasteful design, and poor quality assurance. Makes me wish we had held on to my mother’s 1972 Vega, even if the floorboards were rotting.

Cash for Clunkers was a poorly managed program that wasn’t well thought out, and it’s ridiculous that it was run by someone with no auto experience. Hot Air’s article titled Big winners in Cash for Clunkers: Toyota, Honda, and Nissan points out that foreign car makers gained share while American auto makers lost some market position.

This would be undesirable if those Hondas, Toyotas, and Nissans were manufactured offshore. However, according to the Japanese Automobile Manufacturer’s Association in 2007 (apparently the latest year for which data is available):

• 63% of Japanese-brand autos sold in the US were manufactured in the US.
• 424,000+ people were employed by Japanese auto makers in the US.
• 1.6 Million US-made “Japanese” vehicles were exported from the US.

If these numbers are to be believed, is it still valid to say there are foreign cars and American cars? A related question: are the supply chains of GM, Ford, and Chrysler located exclusively within the US? Are the parts makers exclusively based in the US? How many make parts for multiple auto brands?

The slump in auto buying impacted Honda and Toyota as well as GM and Chrysler, and if the metrics above are any indication US employees and suppliers of so-called Japanese car makers were feeling the squeeze as much as those of GM, Ford, and Chrysler. A significant portion of the cash for clunkers funds spent on Hondas, Toyotas, and Nissans will remain in the US.

Today’s Union Leader reports that some NH auto buyers are being asked to cover their promised “cash for clunkers” rebates:

Frustrated with delays, rejections and computer-system crashes, several New Hampshire auto dealers are making car buyers pledge to cover rebates if the federal government doesn’t come through with checks under the Cash for Clunkers program.

Auto dealers say they are doing so because the federal government is a clunker when it comes to sending out rebate checks of $3,500 or $4,500 per car.

Now of course there are associated consumer protection issues and the state of NH is looking into it. Maybe there needs to be some form of protection for the dealers as well.

In Swanzey, the dealership that includes Toyota of Keene is waiting for money from 130 rebates.

Fore some dealers, the IOUs surpass $500,000, (NH Auto Dealers Association President Peter) McNamara said. “For any dealer, $100,000 represents a serious cash-flow issue if you don’t know when it’s going to come in,” he said.

And President Obama’s administration thinks it can manage a nationalized health care system? Reminds me of this guy:

*Update: HotAir reports on the Feds pulling workers away from FAA to staff exploding Cash for Clunkers bureaucracy and adds this cautionary note:

There’s actually a serious risk here that the feds are going to mismanage a simple car-rebate program into bankruptcy. Oh, and more good news: Confirming earlier suspicions, it’s foreign carmakers that are getting the lion’s share of the sales. Exit question: Which is more frightening as an omen for ObamaCare’s future problems? Yesterday’s $2 trillion upwards budget revision or this wheezing canary in the coal mine?

*Update: Mercifully it’s over. Ed Morrissey has a good review of this clunker of a program.