Lots of passed off vehicles to poorer countries tend to be body on frame style. Lots of ford/Toyota trucks, where frame damage can as "simple" as welding steel bar stock or straightening with a basic frame puller.
If a unibody vehicle is totaled from major damage in the US, they get scrapped of nearly every usable part, then crushed and melted down. Not even worth the shipping/hassle to send a smashed up Kia to Central America, let alone Africa. People aren't stupid. They're just as savvy at this, if not more, than we would ever be. Hence the amount of body on frame SUVs and trucks that get salvaged there. Sure, you'll see "beat up" cheap cars there, but they'll pass on anything majorly damaged, cuz even there, it's simply not worth it.
Yup, agreed. In the US the incentives are against repairs, not for. I don't know enough about cars to have an opinion on whether Tesla-style cast bodies will result in more cars being written off with similar damages to other fairly expensive cars.
