Car crusher
A car crusher is an industrial device used to reduce the dimensions of derelict (depreciated) cars prior to transport for recycling.
Car crushers are compactors and can be of two types: "pancake", where a scrap automobile is flattened by a huge descending hydraulically-powered plate, or the baling press type, with which the automobile is compressed from several directions until it resembles a large cube.
Car crushers can be stationary or mobile.
[edit] Car crushers in popular culture
Car crushers have been popular in films as devices of murder or humour. They have appeared in such well known films as Goldfinger, National Lampoon's Vacation, I'll Never Forget What's'isname, Kick-Ass, Superman III, Gone in 60 Seconds and Pulp Fiction.
They have also appeared in several television shows including Mathnet's "The Case of the Great Car Robbery". Joe Howard's character, George Frankly hid in a to be stolen car and the other characters thought he was still in the car after it was flattened by the crusher.
A car crusher appeared in the junkyard scene of the Kushner-Locke/Disney movie The Brave Little Toaster.
A car crusher also appears in the video games Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories where the player can make money from stealing cars and take them to the crusher.
[edit] See also
- Vehicle recycling
- Beat the Crusher, a UK TV show featuring cars demolished by a car crusher
- César Baldaccini, a baled car artist, now deceased
- James Squillante, a mobster reputedly crushed in his own car.
[edit] External Links
- "Where Old Cars Meet Their End And Start Over", November 1930, Popular Science bottom of page 61 shows the first type car crusher in action
- "Giant Press Bales Autos." Popular Science, August 1948, p.119.
