With the floodwaters still standing, there was no way on Friday to assess how much additional damage the already battered vehicles had sustained, or whether the plastic enclosure had protected them.
By contrast the armoured vehicles used by most diplomats and military officers, as well as senior Afghan officials, stick out as sleek, heavy targets in the city's swarms of mostly battered vehicles.
Battered vehicles and tents clustered around the edge of the dusty clearing, and smoke rose from a small fire.
We see a highly fetishised gleaming 70s automobile; it looks as if it has been lovingly maintained and preserved by the kind of company that leases out period cars to movie shoots, not the casually battered vehicle that existed at the time.
Unable to see or avoid potholes, he battered his vehicle until the muffler fell off and he lost a critical bolt that fastened the hood shut.
Most of the carts are battered old utility vehicles, but, as with anywhere in the world, some people are more emotionally invested in their vehicles than others.
A mob of up to 40 youths in St.-Dizier, in the northeast, battered two police vehicles with metal bars, set fire to more than a dozen parked cars and also to a community center, officials said.
Half the vehicles, battered to the edge of extinction, could be pulled straight off these streets and used unaltered in the next Mad Max movie, while many of the others, polished to a high sheen by diligent servants, would fit in on a boulevard in Malibu.
After the assault, British police bolstered security around Parliament, erecting metal barriers to limit access to the buildings and protect the site from vehicles deployed as battering rams.
More video of the episode, posted on YouTube early on Saturday, also shows the wounded man being rushed away from the scene, and protesters battering one of the police vehicles as it retreated.
