Police auction

[Des]

A friend once bought an ex plod Mk2 Escort estate, it looked to be in reasonable order, he asked me to investigate a noise from the front, the piece of crap had a crack running from the top to bottom of the O/S inner wing back near the bulkhead.

[Lord Sterling]

I was also thinking about any vehicle's that the police seize.Do they all get crushed now or do they still sell them off?

I believe seized vehicles are passed onto a third-party who sell the car on the thier behalf, if the cars do not sell then I think they are crushed. A few years ago I used to spotted a couple of eBay sellers who'd auction cars that had otherwise been seized. They mostly had a standard reserve price of around £275 which paid covered the seizure and storage, anything on top of that was a bonus.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I bought two ex filth motors from Witney 20-25 years ago. One was a white (!) Mark 2 Astra Merit patrol car. A mate migged up the roof holes and painted it (well, the whole car) and as we were prepping a GTE for saloon car racing, I had the carpets, interior and headlining to replace the standard rubbish. Sold it and made about 800 quid.

 

The other was a Cardinal red Sierra 1.6 base model that had been a CID car or something. Filtly dirty, 100'000 miles and on a B plate, it cleaned up well enough. This would be around 1988-89 I'm guessing. I know the guys who run WOMA - a greeat auction where I bought a lot of cars back in the day.

[brickwall]

I have just remembered that when I was at college, a mate had been bought a former Strathy Polis Ford Orion. I can't remember the spec, but he was quite chuffed.

[Sigmund Fraud]

I should imagine the leather is easier to wipe puke etc off than cloth, which would retain the smell. Not being the seventies, there's probably no vinyl option.

 

This is one possibility. The other possibility is that police buy the same kind of cars like rental companies, meaning odd, undesireable spec or QC failures.

[gordonbennet]

I was also thinking about any vehicle's that the police seize.

Do they all get crushed now or do they still sell them off?

 

Now and again when down that way i used to pick a full load of cars, vans etc up from a mahoosive compound not far from Dover, these were all Customs confiscated vehicles, then take 'em to Paddock Wood auctions.

The compound at Dover was hundreds of acres, bloody bulging with every vehicle imaginable including lorries and seriously pukka coaches.

 

Haven't a clue if the system still operates like that, this was the 90's.

[Bobthebeard]

Never bought anything ex dibble personally, but I suspect an old Ford Transit with a cage in the back still containing a gobby pissed up thong demonstrator Essex lass would be a challenge.

Road Wars FTW.

[gordonbennet]

possibly  because the emissions s info for the  driveline spec  isn;t supplied by ovlov  so they get some kind of fall back VED rate applied.

 

Thats an interesting theory, would re-inforce the rumour that those V70 T5's were running 300hp in old bill spec, if they were keeping schtum.

[chaseracer]

I went to a police auction once, bought a PCSO and a chief superintendent, thought I could keep one in the car while using the A frame. They were both wankers though so I put them back in the following week and lost £800 in total including doughnut costs,  NEVER BUY A RETIRED COPPER they are more bother than theyre worth

One of them was clearly bent.

[Skizzer]

I bought a stolen-and-recovered Kenwood stereo for my MGB at a police auction once. It was in Hammersmith somewhere, I think (the mid 90s are a bit blurry, sorry). Flushed with the success of this, after the BGT got crushed and I bought the Scirocco, I went back and got a stereo for that too. Trouble was, it was a pull-out one without the surrounding cage, so was completely useless. (No-one will sell you a replacement cage, obviously, cos that would rather defeat the security purpose.)

 

That's my life, right there.

[Pillock]

The police are good customers - they fix cars themselves so don't make loads of warranty claims, it's good advertising to see your product on the four million different police camera TV shows, and they're not going to barter over free mats and flaps. I know VX make special runs of cars for the police. Wouldn't surprise me if others did too.

 

Same as big lease firms can order bespoke runs. Our old fleet Focii weren't a spec you could buy from a dealer.