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.
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I’ll come in with a Chinook that has a giant magnet on it. This is such a rip, I’d gladly give a couple of those classic Mini’s a home.
The Humanity!!! (or Caranity) (Sorry Not Sorry) (P.S. Puns4Lyfe)
I will chain myself to all those cars
Share it with all the people you know (like I did), hopefully there will be enough enthusiasts that sign the competition to save those beautiful classics
it boils me that people do this so such rare cars only to get a discount off a sh*tty car they will sell in a few years because value has dropped too much
One of the many reasons why I hate the government. They have no sense of what’s actually going on. Oh look a grey car looks at the Porsche scrap it, not worth much…
Wankers
Why is it illegal, on what planet does tgat make sense, surely people could buy them to stop the backlog?
This is so sad, I am going to cry
The car industry (the fun and cheap part of it) is dying. I think it started when people started talking about “go green blah blah blah”. And people don’t care about the cars anymore. I live in Brazil, people preffer to buy a new hyundai econobox than an old rwd (wich is a bit rare here).