story
list of vehicles
that died in the 2009 scrappage scheme provoked a wealth of insightful comments from PHers, ranging from those who signed the death warrant on their own cars to those working at dealers taking in classics.
This probably wasn't the £3K Maestro...
First, the tears. "I'm weeping and haven't got past Bs yet," said PHer IanMorewood. Cars you further identified from the list included an Austin Healey Sprite, three Nissan Skylines, a Chevrolet Camaro, a Mazda RX-7, a Peugeot 205 Rallye, a couple of Toyota Supra Turbos, 50+ Alfa GTVs and Spiders and 39 Honda CR-Xs.
Skater12 recounted the pain signing the death warrant while working at a dealer: "There was no going back. A trader couldn't buy it, a member of the public couldn't save it as a project".
A couple of posters worked some Excel magic to give us some data: Slinky put Ford at the top of the scrappage heap with 74,044 cars gone, followed by Vauxhall, Peugeot and VW. Meanwhile Thelawnet calculated the Ford Fiesta was the most scrapped car, ahead of the Vauxhall Corsa and the Nissan Micra.
Several posters wondered whether the cars seemingly worth way more than the £2,000 discount they generated were actually roadworthy, despite the need for a valid MoT.
Cue a great story from oilit: "I towed my neighbour's Range Rover P38 4.0 to the dealer for him - it only had a shell and wheels, none of which were the right ones, but it had an MoT and V5 in his name for more than 12 months and thus it qualified."
Let's hope that Impreza really was scrap
Poster Pwig said he didn't see a single nice example during his time working for a dealer. "Every single car we had on scrappage was a nail."
Another PHer, Djc206, reckoned there was a lot of fiddling of MoTs to make the cars qualify. "I scrapped an old Punto that had just scraped through an MoT on the promise to the friendly tester that I was buying a new car on the scheme."
There were plenty who did well out of it. PHer303 for example got himself a nice bumper for his Mk1 VW Golf Cabrio after finding an immaculate scrapped Californian import car.
The dealers did have some powers to stop nice motors from being carted off to the scrapper. Skater12 tells a great story about an elderly chap who brought in a mint MG Maestro to the dealer where he worked. "I told him that if he gave me 20 minutes I'd have someone come and buy the car from him for at least the same amount. 30 minutes later a friend of a friend came screeching onto the forecourt, had a quick look round the car and gave my customer £3K. The result: one very happy customer and one modern classic saved."
He also recounts a tale from a Land Rover dealership whose staff reportedly bought a Series 1 Landie instead of scrapping it and now use it to help train new mechanics.
Creative use of old cars!
Other dealer workers had fun of a more basic kind. This from r1chardc, who worked in a Vauxhall dealer: "The best bit was the demolition derbies in the storage compound before the cars were collected, best stress reliever I can recommend..."
Others grieved over the scrapping of perfectly good cars, no matter how uncollectable. From The Hypno-Toad: "I did send an immaculate Rover 100 Kensington with 44K on the clock to an early grave".
The appalling spelling from the data inputters raised a smile - the Rover 220 SDI Turdo for example. And we liked this, ahem, acidic comment from PHer Can't remember: "I'd like to think the salesman that typed Citron for Citroen knew exactly what he was doing."
There are plenty more stories from PHers on the scrappage scheme. Join the discussion here.