Car Donations

Car donations have made an impact on the automotive industry that rivals electric starters and automatic transmissions.

Cadillac introduced electric starters after an automotive designer lost a friend to the old hand crank start method. The car designer's friend broke his jaw, and died of his injuries.

The automatic transmission was developed for cars out of economic necessity. New drivers, small people, ladies, and more men than would admit it, found the clutch and stick method of changing gears complicated and sometimes embarrassing. Automatic transmissions were a way to get more people to embrace cars.

Car donations have a bit of both. Like electric starters, car donations were initially the result of well intentioned people trying to do some good. Charities are always looking for ways to help their cause, and at some point car donations were mentioned as a possible source of donations.

Like the automatic transmission, car donations were the result of economic reality. Americans already donated to charity, and the average American family already had to get rid of a junk car every several years. Car donations were a way to get more Americans to make charitable donations.

Car donations are a wonderfully symbiotic relationship between charitable giving, the desire for a tax deduction, and America's need to dispose of hundreds of thousand of junk cars a year.

Those making car donations get to feel good and make a charitable gesture, worthwhile charities get to do more good, and the junk yards, car removal businesses, and scrap metal dealers, still end up with the same supply of junk cars.