Hundreds Of Amazing Modern Classics Are Waiting To Be Crushed And It’s Illegal To Save Them
BMW E24s/E28s/E30s, classic Minis, Jaguar XJSs, Porsche 924s, 944s and 928s - all can be found in droves sitting on a disused airfield in Bedfordshire. Some probably won’t take much to get back to good working order, all will have valuable parts, and none of them can be touched.
We’re talking about the results of the UK Government’s 2009 scrappage scheme, which enabled people to trade in their old car to be crushed - so long as it had a valid MOT - to get a £2000 discount on a new one. The motivation was to breathe some life into the then-troubled UK car industry, and replace old, polluting vehicles with much cleaner new ones.
The problem? Many of the 392,227 cars scrapped simply did deserve to die. A full list of the cars taken off the road for the scheme was published a year and a half ago, and while that was depressing enough then, seeing images of a lot of the cars in question is pretty hard to take. Thousands of vehicles have not yet been crushed, and an urban explorer recently snuck into a disused airfield in Bedfordshire where many are kept, posting what he saw on Facebook.
While you look through the set - and this additional one here - just remember: by law, these cars, many of which will have been perfectly roadworthy upon arrival, have to go to the crusher. Not a single part can be saved. And all so a bunch of people could get a moderate discount on a boring econobox (apparently Kia did quite well out of the scheme…).
Given the explosion in classic car prices over the last few years, a lot of the vehicles you see here gathering moss and rusting away have become extremely valuable, making it seem like even more of a waste. But there is something we can do. A petition has been launched on Change.org, calling on the government to auction off surviving cars to the public, or at the very least saved for parts. It could end up being futile, but for the sake of a few moments of your time, it’s damn well worth trying…
Source: Pistonheads
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
this makes me angry and sad at the same time
That’s so depressing!! All those classic cars just gone ):
Steal em i guess?
These cars need to be saved, it’s a piece of history just like all the stuff in the museums, should we throw away 15th century armor because it’s not as good as kevlar?
yes and replace it with cars
what if we could, you know pool our resources, bring in some useless cars and swap them with these beauties, the crushers have no idea about cars so they won’t notice
I told my mom’s friend something similar but she told me “but it’s just an old japanese car” when I explained to her about Supras and GT-R’s and 240sx’s.
Seriously… governements sucks nowadays
Here i am wanting a 240z for a wonderful project car….and they’re crushing them
Oh god… Those Minis.. And a 928.. I want to buy them but just save them :(
I dont see why, at a time when the UK government are crying about money, they dont just sell these at current market value! yes they were taken in to be scrapped but the price they were taken in at is for the most part a lesser price than their now worth…. actually maybe that was the plan all along
if they only paid about 2k for each car, id say they’d average 1500 profit on each car. obviously there will be big losers in that mix bag but also big winners! them Silvias go for decent money now in any condition. At 1500 average per car thats about 500million profit and over 1.3 billion gross! but maybe my numbers are way off, either way the cars that can be sold should be sold and the ones that are well past its go to the shredder
Is it still illegal if i buy them when im living in germany?
WE NEED TO STOP THIS. if they had any idea how much we love classic Minis and Jags here in México…