PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Among the junkers, you can spot the new Mazdas.

It's the gleaming paint jobs that distinguish them from the others that all are smashed pancake flat in a Portland metals recycling yard.

They are among 4,703 new Mazdas that were aboard the Cougar Ace when the cargo ship went atilt off the coast of Alaska in July 2006.

Few took water - the ship listed 60 degrees to port but was not submerged. Mazda initially thought all could be salvaged.

But after engineers looked at them, Mazda decided it couldn't be sure what might happen down the road to cars that were on their sides and exposed to salty sea air for a month.

After the ship was towed to port, and while the insurance paperwork was processed, the cars sat in a Port of Portland lot. Now, the new cars are going straight to scrap.

Over the next two months, they will be drained of fluids, shorn of tires and smashed.

Stacked six high, they will be fed to a vehicle-gobbling machine used to a diet of worn-out appliances and high-mileage vehicles.

The machine at Schnitzer Steel's northeast Portland industrial site uses 26 hammers, each weighing 1,000 pounds, to pulverize a car into fist-size pieces.

It can eat up to 200 cars an hour. Then a magnetic sorter separates the metal. The rest, called "shredder fluff," is to be sold as a daily cover for landfills, said Ann Gardner of Schnitzer Steel.

Schnitzer expects to recover about 2,900 tons of steel, shipping it to a McMinnville mill that will process it into fence posts, wire rods and reinforcing bars.

Although Mazda no longer owns the cars, it is being vigilant to make sure none escapes recycling, said spokesman Jeremy Barnes.

"We don't want to run the risk of losing face with our customers," he said.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)