In a world where people work hard to buy a brand-new car outright, it can be a bit soul-crushing to see what appears to be a perfectly fine car meet the jaws of destruction.
Yet, it has become increasingly common for videos to reach the internet showing some of the finest vehicles being compacted into nothing but a tiny cube.
Even more remarkable was Dodge taking to 93 of first-generation Vipers with the claw 20 years after its release, cars that would now be worth six figures.
While it may seem like a wasteful use of metal, it turns out that car brands have a good reason to retire these collectible cars.
Why do manufacturers crush perfectly fine cars?
The cars you watch meeting their fate online are referred to as pre-production models. These are vehicles that are nearing the end of their development stage and need final testing either on roads or at private testing facilities.
Reading through the complex and lengthy Road Vehicle Standards Act (RVSA) for Australian vehicles, we found some subsections regarding pre-production vehicles.
There are a number of different conditions a vehicle must follow based on how far along it is in development, with Infrastructure Australia saying, “The eligibility criteria for testing or market evaluation include that the vehicle will not be used on a public road or used on a public road only in exceptional circumstances."
"Exceptional circumstances may include situations where road use occurs on a regular basis, but use on the road is controlled or limited by registration authorities and conditions of the approval.”
Take a look at this pre-production BYD Sealion 8 I spotted testing on Australian roads in camouflage before its launch Down Under in 2026. Although it holds full NSW registration, it is publicly listed on Service NSW with two conditions.
Condition one, being V23: “No compliance plate, registration to terminate”, and V68: “this registration is not transferable,” both align with the conditions that Infrastructure Australia say must be placed on the vehicle.
Furthermore, the vehicle-type approvals document goes on to say, “ensure that any vehicles imported under the approval are exported or destroyed if the compliance information is not supplied within six months of the approval date, and/or they were not manufactured in accordance with the final approved design.”
That means that certain pre-release vehicles with the same design as the released car can be considered for a separate approval application, but the time and expense often leads manufacturers to destroy or export the car.
So why does the government force manufacturers to destroy these cars? There are several reasons.
For starters, these cars are part of the development cost of building a brand-new car – the company has already budgeted the cost to build them, eliminating the need to sell them off.
There are also implications surrounding access to the restricted data that the brand may use for future development, which is rare, but access to the ECU could enable it.
However, the main reason is that they are a liability. Small tweaks to the car and other changes may be made before the car reaches the market, leaving the buyer able to sue for damages due to parts defects. There is also the risk of bad publicity if a pre-production model were to fail or break down.
We reached out to Hyundai Australia, a brand that is often testing its new vehicles on Australian roads before they become publicly available, and Bill Thomas, Hyundai Australia's General Manager of Public Relations, says that it's simply not advisable to sell them.
"Sometimes it's an absolute crying shame that these cars are turned into cubes, because late-stage pre-production models (called M-Stage cars) are incredibly well-made (hand-built, effectively) to an equal or better standard than production cars," said Thomas.
"It would be inadvisable to sell them… the main reason is down to the potential differences in spec between the pre-production models and the ones that are mass-made for the market."
Pre-production and concept vehicles are also sometimes built without a VIN plate, which makes them physically impossible to register.
Manufacturers, such as Dodge, with the 93 Vipers that were crushed, can also choose to donate the vehicles to automotive engineering and mechanics schools, with the clause that they may recall the vehicles to be destroyed at some point.
In a press release, Dodge said that “As part of the donation process, it is standard procedure — and stipulated in our agreements — that whenever vehicles are donated to institutions for education purposes that they are to be destroyed when they are no longer needed for their intended educational purposes.”
“With advancements in automotive technology over the past decade, it is unlikely that these vehicles offer any educational value to students.”
The Dodge Vipers are a good example because, while they look exactly the same, they lack the emissions-control components, speed limiters, and certain electronics found on the production models.
Bill Thomas says that Hyundai does the same thing as well with its pre-production models, often donating them to TAFEs and universities for training purposes.
Unfortunately, public outcry rarely saves these vehicles, as the storage costs to care for them, which can never be registered, often outweigh the risk that someone might take one of these cars onto a public road illegally.
Zane Dobie comes from a background of motorcycle journalism, working for notable titles such as Australian Motorcycle News Magazine, Just Bikes and BikeReview. Despite his fresh age, Zane brings a lifetime of racing and hands-on experience. His passion now resides on four wheels as an avid car collector, restorer, drift car pilot and weekend go-kart racer.
