Stripping cars - viable business model?

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At present I am a full time dad, I used to work in IT but getting another job will be hard with the kids at school 9-3.15. Like everyone else I am looking at getting my hands on some extra income. I am thinking about stripping cars bought off ebay as non runners. The plan is to strip one car at a time.

I have a large garage and very big shed, a decent MPV which is capable of pulling a fair sized car on a trailer. The MPV weighs 1800kgs. The garage will be used to strip the cars out of sight of neighbours (I am not overlooked anyway) and the shed for storage. I will need a decent second hand trailer. If my venture goes tits up I can always sell the trailer on and if I buy at the right price I would seem to have little to lose. Also my MPV runs on veg oil so my fuel expenses will be low, I may have to get business cover for my insurance although initially I can perhaps say I was buying a second hand car for myself. When scrapped the shell can be sold for scrap.

Any pointers for the sort of car I need to be stripping? I plan to dispose of parts on ebay.

If anyone can see any flaws in my logic let me know!

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Storage is no problem with a 300 sq ft shed. This actually looks like it might be a goer then. I will trawl ebay for a cheap car trailer, thanks for the comments. Specialist cars rather than general everyday stuff seems to be the way to go.

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Breaking one car at a time in a closed garage, my nearest neighbours are not going to be a problem. I wouldn't be doing this if I thought it was anti social or would cause a disturbance, but your comments are appreciated.

I can see the problem may be if it takes off and I need to break more than one car. I think a trailer is going to be about £750 to start. I also have the opportunity to buy cars which have been neglected and have no MOT, sort them and then sell on with the benefit of a trailer. Example

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1992-MERCEDES-230TE-AUTO-BLU...

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If I can get the car to the scrap man he can deal with a lot of the fluids, and presumably pay me for whatever is left of the car. I assume a scappy will take even a shell plus bits I cannot remove?

Waste oils can be disposed at my local tip along with tyres/rims, albeit on a non commercial basis. I was not planning on using torches or such like. Any fuel in the tank can be safely removed and stored for use.

Please keep the comments coming for and against, its still something I am mulling over at the moment before I committed to buying a trailer I wanted to check with the PH massive that I was not being a bit bonkers.

Stripping individual cars quietly in a close garage should not cause any problem for my neighbours.

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Eric Mc said:

The OP mentions the word "business" in his thread title so one must assume that he is looking at doing this properly and above board.

Eric I was thinking along the hobbyist line rather than a business at first to be honest, max one car every 2 months. However my main worry would be a car catching fire and damaging my house now I have had a think about it, try explaining that to your household insurance. It would seem possible to make this work, but there is no scaling up without great expense.

Thanks to you all for helping me think this through. Off to Tesco for an application form for me then.