ALLETE INC. Duluth, Minnesota Auto Auction Business Takes Hit After Attacks.(THE NEW AMERICA)

Byline: ALAN R. ELLIOTT

Next stop: ad nauseam.

The endless ads pushing 0% auto financing are enough to make most folks queasy. But car buyers aren't bellyaching. They know the nixed finance charges cut an average $2,700 from the price of a new ride.

That's a whole lot of hubcaps. But what does it have to do with electrical utility Allete Inc.?

Don't let the smokestacks fool you. Yes, Allete is the small and steady electrical provider for 150,000 Duluth, Minn.-area residents and some large Great Lakes industries. But it's also a key player in the industry that auctions 10 million used cars a year to dealers.

That industry took a hit in September, with the rest of the country. The first bump came when grounded flights prevented many large-scale buyers from getting to the auctions. Next, new car sales fell off.

"The impact on the economy, particularly on new-car sales, was fairly dramatic," said UBS Warburg analyst Walter Kirchberger. "New-car companies responded with very aggressive discounts."