Over $1.2 million worth of seized Porsches, Jaguars and even a third-generation Corvette were destroyed in the public event. Rather than auction the valuable cars, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte ordered the workers to just sell the twisted steel.

Seems a shame, they could have been sold and the money used to help the county.
http://www.foxnews.com/auto/2018/02/06/ ... -cars.html

That'll teach those nasty drug cartels! What a freakin waste.
I don't even see any point in that.

Apparently it wasn't drug cartels, but illegal importers;

Oh well, a few mil isn't much to those governments.

I suppose making smelter chow of the seizures is better than a public execution of the criminals...

Actually US Customs will do the same thing.
One time someone tried to smuggle a recent non-USA market car in with a 25 year old VIN plate. Sort of obvious when the engine has a computer black boxes on it.
So the car was CRUSHED

This message probably worked well, too, just from the "it's a waste" messages here alone. That was the whole point. Really "hurt" anyone who cares about such items, that did not cost the government anything, and potential illegal importers will know to not even try it.

I seem to remember that several years ago US customs crushed a whole shipload of brand new SUVs. They were made to be sold in some other part of the world and they were diverted to the US. They didn't meet US safety standards. The prospective owners had already paid for them. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I always thought about buying a VW Beetle as they were still being made in Mexico well into the 2000's. They did not meet US pollution standards, so you could not own one here. Nice to think about, though!

Back in 1967 or '68, when I was stationed in West Germany, my little brother asked me to purchase a new VW Beetle, and have it shipped to Long Beach, Ca. for him.

The dealership, being in a "GI" town (Wurzburg) was available to offer an export model, in addition to the local variety (which had the speedometer in "Kliks", no safety glass nor sealed headlights, no amber back up lights, and I'm sure a few other differences as well). I don't recall there being any smog regulation at that time.

I did the deal -I think it was around $1600 for the vehicle, and another $200 or so for the shipping, so he got it for a total of about $1800, where if he had bought it stateside it would have been at the time around $2700 or so, IIRC. Now IDK or can't remember if he had to pay any import tax or not, but regardless, there was no hassle in him obtaining it, and at 2/3 the cost of him buying it locally.

a VW Bug was $2000 in 1969/1970. My dad and brother both bought one in one of those yrs.
My brothers was 2200, he got some kind of tape deck in it, wasn't 8 track, seems too early for cassette, not sure what it was, looked like a cassette tape, smaller maybe,
I was only 9. and he got a couple other options, sunroof.
They all came with free 2/50 air conditioning, downhill only

My brother bought a 65 red Beetle new in 1965. The cost was $1609. The car weighed 1609 lbs, about a dollar a pound. The radio was a Bendix Sapphire I AM and was a $70.00 option.
Mike