Show TURN OLD CARS INTO NEW STEEL ancient equipages Equi pages are wrecked and sent to furnaces every day detroit bound for the maw ot of a roaring ron ring open hearth furnace through which they will pass to live again as new steel nothing can be quite so pathetic looking as the hulks of nee proud automobiles moving slowly forward on the disassembly line of a great automobile factory to be wrecked rent and torn for the last bolt or nut that can be put to some useful service aenice elsewhere from appersons Ap persons to West cotts cars of makes long since forgotten the line stirs the imagination to wonder for instance what notables notable may have ridden in that old gray hearse with its owners bas relief monogram still shining brightly through the junk yard grime or what young lovers courted in that nobby roadster its stern em blazoned with a picture of an ocean liner a lighthouse and a sailing vessel four hundred wrecked dally daily scores or of men scattered along a 11 line have been wrecking old cars at the rate of every eight hours since last year solving a problem as distressing to municipal authorities and property owners as it has been vexing incidentally to automobile dealers what such a wholesale wrecking program means in the removal from the highways of motor menaces to life and limb in the elimination of the unsightly junk piles that litter the landscape and in the conversion to new usefulness of materials that would otherwise go to waste Is obvious the derelicts hauled from junk plies piles or the old cars received in exchange for new automobiles are purchased from a ford dealer at a uniform rate of 20 a car there is no restriction as to age condition or make of car and the only requirements are that each must have some semblance of tires and a battery and that the cars must be delivered by the dealer to the plant thus far the pr program has been confined to the detroit metro metropolitan poll area and no less than CO 60 different makes of cars many of them long since out of production have been wrecked the dealers hauling them to the plant five six or even seven on long reach trucks nothing in the old wrecks that were once abandoned in vacant lots or left to rust on junk heaps la is thrown away everything used As the derelicts move slowly along the conveyor a squad of wreckers attack them from all sides tearing off fenders bu bumpers headlights batteries wheels and other exter exterior lor parts while another group Is removing the upholstery and interior fittings the cotton and hair in the upholstery are separated baled and sold cloth and covers of nil all kinds all the leather from roof rides and seats are sent to sewing machines nearby to be transformed into aprons and hand band pads for workmen or buffeting and polishing wheels gasoline tanks are crushed and bated baled for the ultimate recovery of terne steel within slightly more than two hours after the old car lq Is first dragged into the conveyor it Is completely demolished nud find the frame crushed by a gigantic 20 ton press Is being rammed into the furnace aside from the myriad myria d uses to which t the h e parts and materials of such wrecked cars are put the salvaging process has thus far produced more than tons of high grade steel |