Full frontal

You recently mentioned the risks of car theft in Poland, even for right-hand drive cars. The same is apparently also true in neighbouring Lithuania. Here in rural Shalford (on the A 281 Guildford - Horsham road) we recently had a Lithuanian car transporter lorry break down in the middle of the village on its return to Lithuania. It was entirely loaded with right-hand drive used UK cars with ‘P’ and ‘R’ plates. The strange thing was that in each case it was only the front half of the car that had been loaded; the rear half had been torched off and presumably left in some dodgy UK dealer's premises to claim under the scrappage scheme. My suspicion was that all these were front-wheel drive cars where all the engine and transmission units were in the front half. I tried to take a photo, but the driver's mate (of burly and threatening build) strongly discouraged this. Thought you might like to know. (This is one story that one just couldn't invent.)

Asked on 3 April 2010 by D.O., Shalford

Answered by Honest John

Many thanks. Very interesting. In fact, engines and transmissions are often extracted from scrappage cars before they are cubed, but torching the whole front ends off is obviously quicker. I've seen a Polish transporter carrying P and R reg complete cars heading south on the M3. Another reader has seen them on the A1 in Holland (which seems a strange route to Poland). As a taxpayer, I can’t get upset about this because the Gov made more on VAT on cars sold on scrappage than it handed out, and those cars would not have been sold at all had it not been for scrappage.

Tags: buying abroad legal issues police

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