Interesting... I read about this particular cargo ship incident long ago. A crushing issue: How to destroy brand-new cars - AutoWeek Magazine
Well in this day and age, you really can't take any chances. However, this would be a good chance for Mazda to show how recyclable their cars are and how much of those new vehicles can be recycled and put into new ones.
I just found out there's a video w/an interview along w/a brief shot of the airbags going off at A Crushing Issue: How to Destroy Brand-New Cars - WSJ.com.
I'm pretty sure that this is the same batch of cars discussed at the end of this article: High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace And while we can point fingers at the USA's litigious nature... mild terms like "tilted" don't quite correspond to "nearly capsized, with many cars under salt water for days". (Given that there are thousands of post-Katrina cars getting sold across the USA (and likely into Central America as well), I'm not sure that's a compelling argument for destruction vs. "as-is donation" ... but the latter is pretty well blocked by the aforementioned litigiousness, so.)
