"....OUCH! The wrecks are facts of life, but old cars being used to prevent errosion on banks is crazy...."

Actually a very common practice during from the 20 thru at least the 60's. I'm told my grandfather used up a lot of model Ts during the depression to stop errosion on the family farm (I can remember dad having a bunch of the lights and horns laying around when I was a kid.

Using the old cars of the era would have been equivelant to using worn out Hondas and GEOs today.