The cash for clunkers program was, by most accounts, a huge success - its goal was to get people buying cars, and it worked to the point that the program ran out of money.  It ends tonight, though, and the real question is whether people will continue to buy cars in its absence.

Depending on what shoppers brought to the table in terms of a clunker, they received $4,500, and that’s a significant percentage of some new cars’ price tags, after all.  So one thought is that people who might have otherwise waited until later in 2009 - or even until 2010 - to buy a car moved up their purchase.

If that’s the case, then the demise of cash for clunkers will return us to a period of people not spending a lot money.  Plus, many normal fall and winter car sales will have already occurred.

On the other hand, with the economy improving (or at least not cratering), it’s possible that cash for clunkers will simply have served to get us over a rough spot, and folks will buy cars (and try to keep up with the formerly-clunker-owning-Joneses) as usual.

It should be interesting to see what happens.  The automakers will play a role, too, of course, since it’s up to them to provide vehicles that people want to buy.