Posted on Saturday 22 March 2008
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.
What a shame! They should have given me one, i wouldn’t mind a little rust =]
At least there will be many spare parts for Mazdas.
That sea air kills cars.
I wonder if they were all tied down somehow (I would assume so) or if they’re all piled on top of each other.
Even if they were a little rusted, you would think they could at least be donated, maybe to some poor people?
After looking at a few photos of what the cars looked like after they where removed from the shit its easy to see why its not worth fixing them.
sucks they lost most of the cargo, but at least thats what insurance is for.
i read the article about this ship in the last wired magazine http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-03/ff_seacowboys
pretty interesting what they went through to save the ship, even one guy dieing.
I would never touch one of those cars no matter what the discount is. One could never know what was really damaged and after one’s warranty is over you’d be on your own to pay for repairs which may arise from being exposed to sea water/air. No Thanks
Thanks for that link, Jesse, very cool.
I just love huge ships, especially the propellers, I don’t know what it is about them.
One time I had a chance to go diving under one of them with a Navy friend of mine. When you see that thing up close, you just hope someone doesn’t push the “start” button…:)
Shame about that one guy losing his life, but it sounds like he didn’t take proper safety precautions. As a rock climber, you always wear a harness and have at least two safety points, it should have been no different on that sloping, slippery deck.
sea water can totally destroy all the car. i have a car that was stored in a sea container and sea air got in to it and now it is stuffed
Good for those jap crap.