Tips on Buying Cars: car donation for filming, company auctions, independent filmmaker

Question
Hi,
I am an independent filmmaker in Los Angeles looking for driving cars to wreck for a short film I'll be shooting in June. I am looking for car donations or very cheap cars (around $200, salvaged included). Can you recommend where I can find people willing to donate cars for film credits, or looking to get rid of cars and selling them for very cheap? Will they have running cars in junkyards?
THANK YOU!
Jake  

Answer
Interesting question.
I'd start by running some adds.  Craigslist.com is a great free forum tor things like this.

A salvage yard may have running vehicles, but most states prohibit the sale of an entire car once it's deemed salvage.  The exception would be to approach someone who is licensed to purchase rebuildable salvage and see if they could purchase some vehicles from insurance company auctions for you to use.  Of course, most are already wrecked.

You may want to look up some charities that accept car donations.  Maybe they would be willing to sell you a small fleet for a good price rather than sending them to auction.

Good luck!