> Does this actually happen?

Absolutely it does. If you live near the Mexican border of the US, it’s extremely common to see older cars being towed headed south, presumably to Mexico. It’s not particularly expensive to drive them down to the border.

> I bet the cars get trashed for scrap or parts.

Only the least valuable and oldest ones that other countries don’t work. That means you’re overall moving up the modernness of the fleet. Presumably with better fuel economy, lower emissions, and fewer problems.

Especially since India drives on the left, and hence uses right-hand drive vehicles. American vehicles are almost all left-hand drive, which are illegal to drive in India – you'd either have to pay for an expensive conversion, or manage to get a rare legal exemption (reserved for historical vehicles, foreign diplomats and official visitors, and other such special cases) [0]

You can import used cars into India, but you'd generally be bringing them in from a left-hand drive market such as Japan, Australia or the UK. Plus, Indian law says import used cars have to be less than three years old, because India doesn't want to become a dumping ground for other countries old vehicles (which also undermines their local car manufacturing sector) [1]

[0] https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/cars/g20-summit-can-one...

[1] https://www.acko.com/car-guide/how-to-import-foreign-cars-to...

Someone who has already bought their last car and it ends up sitting in a garage forever.