For an auto wrecking yard on my Hudson Point & Hawthorne railroad I needed a large number of  HO scale "junk" vehicles. These would include wrecks used for spare parts, "crushed" cars to be shipped to steel mills and both front and rear "clips" for auto body shops. While there are countless HO vehicles available in metal, styrene, resin, and plaster, each material presents its own problems when trying to smash, crumple or cut the cars. There is also a cost consideration in buying a large number of vehicles to destroy.
Considering real cars get crumpled because they are made of sheet metal, I thought I'd try the same thing in HO. For scale automotive sheet metal I chose heavy duty household aluminum foil. Real auto bodies are made by pressing sheet metal over patterns. I found that it can work the same way in HO scale (without the need for a five ton press)……."