CCTV crash sleuthing - help identify car?

[Raify]

Hello PH sleuths,

My old man caught a very strange incident on his cctv. Someone drove past his car, stopped and then slammed it in reverse hitting his car pretty hard.

He's now an excess down and a claim added to his insurance. Witnesses outside got most of the plate, but they either got it slightly wrong or the car has a dodgy plate.

Have a look at the video here:

http://youtu.be/8OgL3RWgYUc

The plate the neighbours got was N?59 NGY. They were certain about the last part (confirmed by 3+ people) but a quick trawl of ask MID shows it must be a different beginning.

The car looks like a Volvo convertible, or maybe a Megane?

The closest I've got as a plate on ask MID is "Mercedes 220 Avantgarde 170 CDI" and "Volvo C30 SE R-Design D"

Any ideas?

[Raify]

Interesting. I thought Megane too, but a mechanic friend was convinced it was a volvo. Also I've been searching new style plates (so Letter, Letter, 59) Hadn't thought of trying old style...

[Raify]

279 said:

AndyDRZ said:

Hello,

Might be irrelevant but You say he drove passed, but actually he hit it on the way passed the first time and then reversed into it.

It almost looked like he was trying to tuck it back into the curb to be less obvious.

Not sure if that makes any difference to anything.

Watch the time stamp and the oncoming Corsa. The Camera does some funkiness.

Must be dropped frames. I've watched it over and over. The blue car drives past, so does the silver car (without hitting parked car), stops and then reverses into parked car. It does look like a bizarre and terrible parking attempt gone wrong.

[Raify]

Don't know what caused that weird frame jump at the start of each shot.

A blue car passes, silver muppet also passes, stops and reverses into black parked Forester which hasn't moved until hit. Silver muppet drives off and another blue car passes.

[Raify]

illmonkey said:

N is 95, before the car, so it could be a private plate. It certinally looks like the charaters on the plate are not as wide as they should be.

How did you get the part of the plate you report? even at 720p it's just a blur.

From neighbours who saw the plate. It's impossible to see the plate on the video, even on the original footage before youtube.

I'll try and render it again to remove the weird frame drops.

[Raify]

Tried the video again. Still does the weird frame thing but it's far enough in front to be obvious it wasn't the crash:

http://youtu.be/N7v3nzEtgh0

Off to autotrader...

[Raify]

timmymagic73 said:

Long time lurker, finally got around to registering - that footage is outrageous.

AndyDRZ is also correct, the Megane clips the parked car on the way through - if you look closely at 15 seconds there's a piece of black trim sliding to a stop in the middle of the road.

Great sleuthing on the Autotrader advert, had to comment to congratulate! :-)
Tim.

I spotted that whilst editing.. My dad has that plastic at home...

That W59 NGY looks like a winner...

[Raify]

I've given the info to the old man, will report back with what old bill / insurance co say...

Thanks everyone! Top sleuthing.

[Raify]

Oh dear, I'm afraid I have one of those disappointing damp squib endings to the thread...

Police aren't interested (they made that clear a while ago apparently). My Dad just called the insurance company with the new info, and they're not interested in pursuing it either.

If I was in my Dad's position, I'd be trying to find the Megane and a bag of frozen sausages. However, it looks like nothing will come of this...