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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 several types: one is a "pancake", where a scrap automobile is flattened by a huge descending hydraulically powered plate, or a baling press type, with which the automobile is compressed from several directions until it resembles a large cube. A third type is a mobile crusher. It is small enough that it can be moved from location to location with a semi truck. This machine utilizes a much smaller plate that crushes the vehicle in sections, as it is slowly fed through the machine.
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 (destroying a Lincoln Continental), Cleopatra Jones, National Lampoon's Vacation, I'll Never Forget What's'isname, Kick-Ass, Superman III, Gone in 60 Seconds, Pulp Fiction and many others.
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 was used to dispose of Walt and Jesse's RV containing a mobile meth lab in season three of Breaking Bad.
A car crusher appeared in the junkyard scene of the Kushner-Locke/Disney film The Brave Little Toaster.
A car crusher also appears in the video games Grand Theft Auto II where it generates power-ups depending on car model and is also used in an assassination mission. It also appears in Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Mafia II where the player can make money from stealing cars and taking them to the crusher.
A car crusher also featured in Need for Speed: The Run, Jack is seen tied to the steering wheel of his red Porsche Carrera 911, on a crusher in a junkyard, before Janella Salvador/Habib Diator's death. On the ground, Marcus Blackwell and a mobster are watching. He is about to be crushed to death, but he wakes up and manages to untie himself and escape the crusher in the last second. He sneaks out and steals an NFS Edition Audi RS4, barely escaping the junkyard alive. Soon, he is chased by multiple Porsche Cayennes, but Jack escapes.