I thought I'd share this clip from the AP regarding the wrong kind of auctions and the importance of due dilligance in any auction or transaction for that matter.  I wondered what happened to all those cars I saw....

Tens of thousands of cars were damaged or destroyed by Katrina, which submerged much of New Orleans in a corrosive broth of saltwater and mud. U.S. officials warned Americans to beware of buying the drowned cars.

But many "Autos Katrina" were shipped overseas, often sold through Internet salvage auctions now globalizing the auto recycling industry.

Totaled cars used to be sold mostly at local auctions to scrap metal dealers and serious gear-heads, who well understood the risks of the trade. But in the past five years, an explosion in on-line sales has lured shoppers around the world. It's a "Wild West marketplace" of tainted dream cars at rock-bottom prices, says U.S. auto insurance industry analyst Brian Sullivan.

"Information is in short supply, and you have to be smart and know what you're doing," he says.

Suspected Katrina cars - with their jittery wiring, sand in the cracks and the telltale mildewed stink - have cropped up in a number of countries, but Bolivia has become a particular target. One local environmental agency believes 10,000 or more flooded U.S. cars may have ended up in the landlocked nation, drawn by loose import rules, a thriving smugglers' economy and an insatiable hunger for cheap wheels.

The hurricane relics are part of a deluge of used imports rapidly transforming South America's poorest country. Fueled by money sent home by migrants abroad, the number of vehicles on Bolivia's few paved highways is expected to double in the next five years.

McGaw's Mini is still a long way from joining the traffic jam.

Hauled south on a container ship, imported through the Chilean port of Iquique and trucked over the mountains to this Andean valley city, the coupe is now perched on a hydraulic lift, stripped to its chassis and surrounded by its rusty innards.