Update: Rusting Mazdas to be scrapped

Update: Almost two years after the Cougar Ace carrier tipped over off the coast of Alaska, damaging 4,703 brand new Mazdas, management have finally decided to scrap all the cars. The Associated Press reports that officials were planning to salvage as many vehicles as they could but rust caused by the salty sea air made the cars unsellable.

Original: You may remember a report that a cargo ship carrying almost five thousand US and Canada bound Mazdas on board had keeled over. Now Mazda has announced that none of the cars will be sold as new and will instead be sold through the used cars market.

"While we do not, at this time, know the full extent of the damage to vehicles on board, none of the Mazdas will be sold as new," said Jim O'Sullivan, president and CEO of Mazda North America. "It is possible that those vehicles which are undamaged or repairable will be made available for sale as used cars through Mazda's dealer network in the U.S. and Canada. We will only be in a position to decide on any used car sales once the vessel has been unloaded and each unit comprehensively inspected. Those beyond repair will be immediately scrapped."

"In the interest of transparency and customer peace of mind, we will post the vehicle identification numbers (VINs) of vehicles destined for sale on our consumer Websites, www.MazdaUSA.com and www.mazda.ca, so that there is no confusion as to which vehicles were on the ship," added O'Sullivan.

Slightly more than half of the cars are MAZDA3s and about one-fourth are Mazda CX-7s. The vehicles were headed to the ports of Vancouver, Tacoma and Hueneme.