The epitome of stupidity

I don't understand why this is happening to not just one, but TWO Dodge Vipers...I don't get it! Asshattery at work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdp8auBPGp0

 

What a waste!


I only saw the one Viper get destroyed. ?????????????
Couln't they at least get an operator who could do it right?

 

Its unfortunate that they have to do this but it comes down to liability, someone buys it and gets hurt or whatever then they will sue Chrysler, the school, the school board, the kids who worked on it and the teacher.

When they "give" these cars to schools for the kids to wrench on, Chrysler can take a tax deduction for the full MSRP of the vehicle.

This has been going on for at least 40 years, GM used to give our school cars that were damaged in transit, they would donate it and take the tax benefit of the donation.

It is a shame but what can you do?

 

I missed the part that it had been a donated vehicle.
You are right about not legally being able to sell those vehicles after donating them.
My brother was custodian/maintenance man at a local high school. The school got a new TransAm that fell off the ramps of a tractor trailer at the dealership.
When the school shop finished it was to be scrapped. Somehow my brother got the engine, tranny, rearend but the entire car could not be sold.

 

"Ca$h for Clunkers".....


I wondered also as to WTF? but as you read on....

Quote......





Reason behind the destruction of these cars..... The two that I had to destroy came from schools in the area's auto shops. Chrysler Corp removed these cars from schools across the country because 1 student supposedly stole one from a school and was killed in it. I don't know how true this stands but I can tell you that a rep from Chrysler was there to verify the destruction of this car and to make sure there was not a salvageable part left. I am unsure how many vipers are to be destroyed. I was told each state has a few or so.

 

Someone was stupid.

Let's sue sombody!

 

I just read the comments from the guy that posted that on youtube. Makes sense. A local vo-tech has a few cars and SUVs donated by Chrysler and GM for the purpose of learning/teaching in the auto shop and the body shop. They've held onto their two Olds Cutlasses for nearly 15 years. These were built here in OKC in 1999, and both had roof damage in-transit. Neither car has over a hundred miles on it.

Watching that first video closer, you can see the insurance crayon marks on the glass and headlights. I know of two Oklahoma vo-techs that have/had Vipers over the past few years. They'd take them to various shows on a trailer (which was permitted) as a good ad tool for the schools.

Still a shame to see these demolished like that.

Wanna see something really shameful? Remember the Chrysler Turbine cars of 1963? To avoid paying import duties and taxes on the 52 cars Chrysler imported from Ghia of Italy, Chrysler destroyed 47 of these cars in a pretty spectacular and terrible fashion. Only three survive in driving condition - one each at Chrysler HQ in Auburn Hills, MI; the St Louis Automobile Museum, and Jay Leno's shop. There are a few additional turbine engines that survive, too.

Silent movie on youtube of the Chrysler Turbine car demolition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc6QJHn6anU

 

Sad about the Chrysler turbine cars...10 fold worse compared to a Viper IMO. I have seen the video you posted before and many years back a few others that I can't find rite now. My question is as you can se in the video posted ( and others I could not find), it's clear the engines have been removed. So if it fate is the crusher, why would the time and effort be involved in removing the engine before they get scrapped/crushed and where did the engines go????? Even in the short glimpse of the empty engine bay you can tell they were not just butchered out.

 

There's so much waste it'll make your head spin. Look what the govenment does with airplanes and other things. What happened to all of those experimental electric cars? And the many one off experimental show and concept cars?
There are starving children in Tibet without transportation!

 

@Tedy - The engines were built in the USA, but the cars were assembled in Italy, so the engines were not subject to import fees and such. So, many of those were pulled prior to the "car"-nage and put on display nationwide, loaned to schools, and such. Some were used in future Chrysler Turbine cars up to and including 1980. There are actually FIVE different generations of Chrysler Turbine engines. The 1963 cars had the third gen engines.

Some excellent reading about the whole Chrysler Turbine program, which started in 1951 and ended in 1982:

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html

Also, were you aware that the M1 Abrams battle tank was originally built by Chrysler, and is the first successful use of a turbine in a production land vehicle offered for sale?

 

Anyone remember Silverfox's buffer? That would probably bring the Viper back to life....

 

The documentary "Who Killed The Electric Car?" sheds a lot of light on what happened to all of those production electric cars that were leased out to customers. We all have varying opinions on the benefits of electric cars but I don't begrudge anyone who wants one, whatever their reasoning might be. GM and the other companies leased these cars out to people as a test, found a very passionate audience for them, and then took them away for destruction claiming that they would be used for research. Several of the folks who got them had sufficient means to offer considerably more than the cars were worth in an attempt to keep them to no avail. There was a lot of stupidity involved in there somewhere.

 

The documentary "Who Killed The Electric Car?"
We watch this every now and then. I was never thrilled about electric cars, right from the first tiller operated one I owned in the early 1900's. But with modern batteries and even better ones now I believe the electric car could be a great city commuter.
As long as oil companies and tire companies have money to donate to our governments better tires, cars, and other things will be on hold.

 

Until there is a battery that doesn't lose capacity in cold weather, and has enough power to run lights, heaters, defrosters and wipers for HOURS, electric cars make no sense here. Even a trip from one end of the city to the other and back can be 50 or 60 miles, and if it snows and is cold, all it takes is one crash and the trip can easily last 3 or 4 hours! If you have no other source of power, and the battery dies, then what do you do? You are completely out of luck!

 

MikeT you take all the fun out of it! But from what I've heard there are now batteries that last much longer.
As for us, we can go to town and back in as little as 30-40 minutes. Plus 10 months of the year don't need a heater or defrosters.