Practically Classics Forum

Oh yeah, it's all about 'Keeping up with the Jones' though Terry! My brother worked at a Vauxhall dealership and while there are many many genuine cases, he loathed seeing benefit scrounging trash turning up to collect their brand new car that they were 'entitled' to, then within months it being a wreck! Bring back the AC Invacar for them I say.

I've always said it, but the registration system here is a considerable amount of the problem because you can tell the age of a car by its reg, and I'm convinced a number of people buy a new car just to have the number plate. Thats why you see lots of things like Dacia's selling well, because these people would rather have a 64 plate Dacia that is cheap and tacky than a 5 year old Mondeo for example. I spend a lot of time in the States and there are a lot of older cars in use out there, even in the harsher climetes of the upper states.

Did he say

Welshie wrote:Minky...

Ah deed, but ah sink ah gert away wiz eet..

That is correct, chimpanzee minky.

Class JPB

I agree the scrappage scheme was a waste of our money but many of the older ones would have been worth more than the 2 grand if they had been in anything approaching reasonable condition, the couple I saw were patched up wrecks with a very dubious mot's that probably would have ended up being broken for spares anyway.

There was a Morgan 4/4 on that list, I'm sure the previous owner is happy in the now 3 year old Daewoo or whatever they bought at the time.
What a waste.

Bear in mind that many of these scrapped vehicles could have been little more than a v5 and maybe a rusting hulk or a pile of bits.....dealer wants a sale, asks what have you got? Instant mot from friendly tester, bits and paperwork off to friendly waste facility.....

Punter gets a discount, everybody gets paid, happy folks all round!

mr rusty wrote:Bear in mind that many of these scrapped vehicles could have been little more than a v5 and maybe a rusting hulk or a pile of bits.....

That's the trouble with most of these government schemes. A firm rang me about loft insulation the other week as they "were in the area" - and I found out later that they had done two friends' houses. When I said that I had got 10" or more of insulation installed (by me), they offered to send a "surveyor" to sign it off! Talking to my heating engineer friend later and he said it was simple: if they signed it off, they could collect the installation fee from the government (for doing nothing). He then told me of a "little old lady" who has just spent £30K and had her heating changed to biomass - on an industrial scale (it filled her garage). It has ruined the saleability of the house and she'll never recoup the cost in her lifetime.

There was a scrappage scheme in France some years ago - before the British one. Some garages in rural areas still have fields behind them full of motors turned in then, because - as is often the case in France - they never got around to actually scrapping them.
There's some interesting pictures in the 'left to rot' thread on Pistonheads - if I'm allowed to mention another site.

Another site? Well there is Autoshite and many of us are there too but beyond AS I didn't know there were such things.

It might well be worth a trip across on the ferry with a large car transporter. A R3W member did just that with a wide Sprinter van and came back with two extremely rare Rothmans Bond Bugs and a standard orange one in the back of the van, the Bugs' wedgie shape making them ideal for stacking like Tetris pieces, though a new canopy was needed for the one that went in upside down as its factory engine mounts didn't work under tension and the (did I say ultra rare) white GRP work developed a Reliant 700 rocker cover-shaped hole by about the top of Derbyshire on his way back up the road. All three cars were successfully registered on their original UK plates though and are still on the road, VOSA haven't taken them away for squashing. Yet.
Bugs were only ever built in RHD, so maybe other British cars that were left over there could be equally easily repatriated? As long as they (England and Wales) don't let the French take back any of theirs, this should redress the balance. Or you could simply buy scrapped cars from the Scottish side of the border, where the subsidy was frequently not paid because of an admin cockup (as though there were any other sort) and that in its turn invalidated the original certs of destruction. One of my own old motors - no, not another Reliant - lives because of this entirely typical cross-national loophole.

froggies had that scheme, it was a waste & didnt really work here either, im still paying for it now when mr hollonde was elected he froze the price of fuel for several months, im still paying for that too now they have discovered a massive hole in the finances & are now sticking fuel electricity gas etc up to try & fill the coffers makes me laugh when mr milliband in the uk wants to freeze gas prices, you will only pay much much more later on when the price freeze is lifted.. twats the lot of them