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I have been associated with paint and body work in NC for many years. Cars here are classified as "totaled" not so much by the amount of damage, but by the dollar cost to repair the vehicle. Several factors are considered such as the value of the vehicle per NADA, and the salvage value of the vehicle. If it is decided not to repair the vehicle, often the owner has the chance to buy the vehicle back and the title is unchanged. If it is sold as salvage the titles are turned in to the state. If it is then bought to be rebuilt it is inspected upon completion by the DMV and a salvage title is issued so the potential buyer is aware it was salvaged out. There are a lot of fairly new high end vehicles repaired with substantial damage though that is done so at the direction of the insurance company. It is about economics. What is the most cost effective solution. Insurance companies here can specify used parts which drastically reduces the actual repair costs. The better salvage yards here even inventory vehicles by color and often you can request a door, pickup truck bed, etc. in the color you need and surf the hotlines for yards until you find it. These are well run, quality yards that sell only quality parts with no or minimal damage. You don't wander around in these yards either. They no longer view their parts as junk, and do not want someone carelessly opening a door into another door and damaging it. Yes, you may have to paint the exterior of the door and blend it to the rest of the car, but you wont have to break it down to trim it out. Of course this is a substantial labor savings for the insurance company and actually gives you a better repair as it is an undisturbed original part with factory paint, noise deadeners, rust preventatives, etc. I personally would much rather have a good clean used door or fender as a new one. An example that comes to mind was a new Lincoln 2 door. It was hit hard in the rear end and nearly flat to the back glass. A rear clip was located in the same color and the car cut in half at the floor pan and the windshield post. The rear clip was perfect as received and when welded on the only paint needed was about a foot on the windshield posts and 2 feet on the rocker. The paint matched perfect. This car was repaired in 4 days and looked great. Granted it would be really great if it had not been hit, but I think this repair was much better than ordering the rear structure in pieces and building it back. Another was a pickup truck that was reframed. Try it. That is a job. I could go on and on but clipping is an accepted industry standard and heavy damage will be repaired if it is monetarily feasible, and industry standards regard the repair as safe if done by a reputable certified shop. As to how this relates to Camaros, the COPO, Yenko, ZL1, etc. were quite expensive when new and I think the majority of owners were of higher income and treated them with more respect than the 18 year old kid who bought a Z or a SS. There were no exotics here in our town. 302, 350, 396, yes. I don't remember any of the 69 camaros here that didn't have some damage to them at one time or another. As to now this is the rust belt and they have a lot of rust in the lower body. As I said earlier, granted I would like to have all my cars virgin, rustfree, never damaged time machines that I found in my grandmother's barn, but the reality of it is there are more that need repairs, and some of them extensive than there are survivors. I would rather have a clipped car myself with a super clip than one that had to have rockers, floors, trunk, wheel housings, quarters, tail panel, etc. but I hear no compaints about those. You talk about a quality construction issue - now you have one. If you put all this on a car would this not come close to the replacing half the car scenario mentioned earlier? Just some thoughts. You know you can repair them several times. Over and over if need be. You can redo them again later too as technology changes if you feel so led. But you can only throw them away once.