A link to this video was posted on another forum I subscribe to. It's rubbish really but I found it strangely addictive to watch (I'm a sad case). As I understood it, the cars on the scrappage scheme were destined for just that. It was funded by taxpayers so I would not have expected any private individual to profit from it by retaining interesting cars. But there's some good ones here and it makes me wonder, did any idiots scrap Fiat 500's or 126's?

Clearly from a different generation though. They were getting excited about all the 90’s cars and virtually walking straight past all the proper old stuff.

For reference - https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2280552,-0.4750898,1343m/data=!3m1!1e3

Those cars have obviously been saved as having some value. If it was just random scrappage scheme storage there would be thousands of ordinary Fords, Renaults, Pugs, Citroens, later Rovers etc there. Looks like parts have been recovered too.


Robert G8RPI.

I remember landing there in the most atrocious weather many years ago, but then it was in the hands of the RAE for testing of aircraft, pity about the cars being left to rot, it's just another example of a government scheme not fully completed
Ian.

Vitesse said:

Clearly from a different generation though. They were getting excited about all the 90’s cars and virtually walking straight past all the proper old stuff.

Click to expand...

That's what I found amusing. But the main-man was genuinely knowledgeable on his narrow field of interest, enthusiastic and behaving endearingly like a great big kid; just the way I would expect to be if instead of Porsches and Golf GTi's the cars had been Fiat 500's.

fiat500 said:

That's what I found amusing. But the main-man was genuinely knowledgeable on his narrow field of interest, enthusiastic and behaving endearingly like a great big kid; just the way I would expect to be if instead of Porsches and Golf GTi's the cars had been Fiat 500's.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I'd call him knowledgeable the whole is it a real RS or not argument proved that.

He could identify a few cars but any proper car enthusiast would be able to do the same.

What I found most interesting is his obsession with 90's cars almost as if they were some how legendary, I had friends with RS escorts and I had friends with a multitude of different Jap cars, I even knew a bloke who had a string of ferraris and a Lamborghini diablo, which now would be worth 6 figure numbers, but at the end of the 90's early 2000's could be had for under £20k
I wonder if the influence of films like the fast and the furious had anything to do with it. I also believe there has been a cultural shift with older cars that anyone can now own an appreciating classic plenty of companies make parts for older cars and will look after your car for you, where as in the past if it was a bit rusty and you didn't know anything about cars, you'd have to spend your weekends down the scrap yard or else send the car there.

A lot of these old 90s cars are sitting in peoples gardens rotting way, with very little hope of ever being restored, I suspect many of the cars in the video where in largely the same situation, With scrappage, all you had to do was get the car to the dealer, didn't matter on condition or road worthiness.

AndyRKett said:

He could identify a few cars but any proper car enthusiast would be able to do the same.
With scrappage, all you had to do was get the car to the dealer, didn't matter on condition or road worthiness.

Click to expand...

Clearly, I'm in awe simply because I admit I'm no car enthusiast and the video guy seems to be so. I'm definitely a one-make...actually one model....in reality, one version bloke and not too hot on even the minutiae of that.

I know scrappage cars could technically be un-roadworthy, but they had to have a current MOT, be taxed and insured at the time you chose your new car; I know because I was persuaded to carry out the dreadful deed on a Fiat Cinquecento Sporting.

Yellow Cinq by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

Prior to scrappage I scrapped my own after it had a fire in the engine bay.

Picture 011 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

fiat500 said:

Prior to scrappage I scrapped my own after it had a fire in the engine bay.

Click to expand...

Was this not on show at the Tate Modern some years ago?

Bigvtwin996 said:

Was this not on show at the Tate Modern some years ago?

Click to expand...

I think that maybe you did; as after all. "modern art is rubbish".
A review from that time:


"Image from a Scrap Yard 2005-2006 is a series of five large colour photographs by the British artist Peter Thompson featuring close-up shots of scrap that he has dissected on his suburban driveway. In each photograph, the lens focuses upon select pieces of hacked and twisted metal – which included a Fiat Cinquecento motor car which lies on a grey, gravelled surface. The redundant car shell both reflects and diffuses the surrounding daylight, highlighting the varying hues of the bodywork so that the scene appears brightly coloured and partly abstract. Although the type of rubbish shown and its exact position within the composition varies slightly, each is presented at an apparently fixed distance from the camera and this, as well as the similar lighting effects used across the five works, creates a sense of cohesion in the series".

The artwork was sold to an Italian collector in 2006 for £347,000 and changed hands at Sothebys in London earlier this year for the sum of £22.50, not including buyer's commission.

I obviously had the wrong idea and had a vision of a pile of scrap becoming a car again some day...

Austin7 as it arrived at my house from Dad’s house and eight years later...

fiat500 said:

A link to this video was posted on another forum I subscribe to. It's rubbish really but I found it strangely addictive to watch (I'm a sad case). As I understood it, the cars on the scrappage scheme were destined for just that. It was funded by taxpayers so I would not have expected any private individual to profit from it by retaining interesting cars. But there's some good ones here and it makes me wonder, did any idiots scrap Fiat 500's or 126's?

Click to expand...

According to list of the 2009 scrappage scheme Yes!.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/car-scrappage-scheme-in-2009

For a real scrap transformation (not quite finished) see this thread
http://hmvf.co.uk/topic/9672-ww1-thornycroft-restoration/
From this
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/Greatwartruck/Thorny2.jpg
to

http://s3.amazonaws.com/hmvforum/monthly_2018_04/DSCN5883.JPG.e64bbc09d674ff898662924e12d777f0.JPG



A long read but worth it.


Robert G8RPI.

If they were meant to have been scrapped, then how comes those 1s survived?

puntofan01 said:

If they were meant to have been scrapped, then how comes those 1s survived?

Click to expand...

Either they are not scrappage or they are being scrapped very slowly
No one said they would just crush cars that had value for spares. Note that none of the "classic" cars had number plates.



Robert G8RPI.

Fair enough. I didn't think the government cared about their usefulness as spares, I thought they just had to be crushed.

g8rpi said:

Either they are not scrappage or they are being scrapped very slowly

No one said they would just crush cars that had value for spares. .

Robert G8RPI.

Click to expand...

I remember they had to be scrapped and that partly persuaded me; rather cantankerously I did not want anyone to benefit from my scrapped car.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thousands-classic-cars-destroyed-part-4353320

I have had a brief look at the list of what was actually scrapped and I think the airfield cars may simply be normal scrap cars that have been earmarked as having more than normal value.

almost anything is restorable these days....


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CLASSIC-...m=292608888111&_trksid=p2060778.c100276.m3476

fiat500 said:

I remember they had to be scrapped and that partly persuaded me; rather cantankerously I did not want anyone to benefit from my scrapped car.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thousands-classic-cars-destroyed-part-4353320

I have had a brief look at the list of what was actually scrapped and I think the airfield cars may simply be normal scrap cars that have been earmarked as having more than normal value.

Click to expand...

Not true,
From related official site https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090721/text/90721w0150.htm#09072344004168
The Government 2009 vehicle scrappage scheme ended in 2010. When a sale was agreed through the scrappage scheme, the dealer was responsible for disposing of the old vehicle through authorised treatment facilities (ATFs). Once a vehicle is handed over to an officially recognised scrappage yard it is up to that ATF to decide whether to repair and sell the vehicle or to completely scrap it."


To get the £2000 the dealer just needed a Certificate of Destruction from an ATF. This does not mean the car was crushed or even dismantled at that time.


Robert G8RPI