About two years ago, in July 2006, the Cougar Ace cargo ship carrying around 4,800, brand new Mazda vechicles, valued at around $120 million, went atilt off the coast of Alaska. Though initially Mazda thought it could save and restore all the cars involved in the incident, after engineers took a good look at the cars, the final conclusion was that Mazda could not guarantee that the cars will function properly after suffering damage and being exposed to the salty water.
Now, after the insurance paper work has been finished, all the cars, which were stockpiled in the Portland port, will be drained, stripped of tires and fed to a vehicle-gobbling machine. With the capacity of smashing 200 vehicles per hour, the machine is expected to return about 2,900 of steel and what will be left of the Mazdas will be processed into fence posts, wire rods and reinforcing bars.
Of course, taking into consideration the vast proportions of the process, even though it doesn't own the cars anymore, Mazda will supervise the whole operation, to make sure no car 'escapes' the process.
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