Why Britain needs a scrappage scheme rethink

SO THERE’S an election coming up. Among the things I’ll be asking candidates who come a-knocking to pledge their support for is turning the M6 into Britain’s first derestricted, German autobahn-style stretch of motorway and minimum speed limits for Nissan Micra owners.

Joking aside, there is a potentially hot potato anyone with even the vaguest interest in cars should be smearing with butter and getting their teeth into – the prospect of a scrappage scheme being reintroduced.

I’ve spoken to all the political parties about the idea of a cash-for-clunkers programme being reintroduced – essentially, a rerun of the controversial 2009 scheme aimed at boosting new car sales by sending older motors to the crusher. While none of them have openly advocated it, some fairly influential figures, including Boris Johnson and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, have. Nissan has already been piloting its own scheme in Ireland. With the last one sending a third of a million cars to the scrapheap for good, a new one would represent a fairly seismic shift in the nation’s motoring landscape.

I’ve spent plenty of time asking what the implications would be for classic cars caught up in the scheme. Last time around 572 MGs and 45 Jaguar XJSs were taken off the roads, found guilty without trial of being unwanted old bangers.

However, there’s a more practical problem with scrappage. The real villains – at least if you believe Boris Johnson’s rhetoric – are diesel cars more than a decade old, because every time one clackers into life on a cold morning there’s a butterfly effect that eventually leads to a polar bear keeling over. But scrappage doesn’t do nearly enough about these cars.

My Peugeot 306 diesel would have been eligible for the last scrappage scheme, but it survived because the prospect of a £2000 discount on a new car either wasn’t tempting or affordable enough. If I wanted to do a like-for-like upgrade and help the environment by canning the old warhorse and plonking my posterior in an entry-level 308 diesel, even with the two grand knocked it’d still be £14,495 I don’t have.

It’s a nice idea, but the people who drive all those 15-year-old Merc E300Ds and battered old Land Rover Discovery TDis tend not be interested in shelling out thousands of pounds on a new car, so they’ll carry on chugging about and suffocating nearby squirrels.

What whoever introduces at the next scrappage scheme needs is a dose of old fashioned, hang-on-a-minute common sense. There needs to be some Treasury magic to make scrapping a Rover 25 diesel in favour of a brand new car make monetary sense.

More importantly, there needs to be way we can all say scrapping a perfectly good Austin A35 or Jaguar XJ-S in favour of a discounted Kio Rio is absolute madness.

We must stop a new scrappage scheme consigning classic cars to the crusher

THERE'S a scary statistic I came up with last week to illustrate the scale of the biggest culling of cars the nation’s ever seen. 

If you took all the vehicles sent to the knacker’s yard five years ago as part of the then government’s efforts to boost new car sales and put them bumper to bumper, the line would stretch from Land’s End to John ‘o’ Groats AND back down as far as Edinburgh. A third of a million cars – most of which had nothing much wrong with them – went to the great garage in the sky.

Chances are if you’ve been reading the motoring publications (including the one I write for) you’ll already know about the metal that met its maker as a result of 2009’s Scrappage Scheme, but if you haven’t it’s worth reading on, because it’s one of the great automotive atrocities of our times. Largely because thousands of perfectly good, and very significant, cars went to the crusher just so someone could have a £2000 discount on a brand new hatchback.

There are thousands upon thousands of entries on the list of cars scrapped in 2009 as a result of the scheme, and it makes for very depressing reading when you see what headed into scrapyards across the country.  52 Porsche 944s, for instance. 45 Jaguar XJ-Ss. Four Riley Elfs. Even a Lancia Delta Integrale, mystifyingly, got chopped because someone somewhere wanted a discounted car instead of Italy’s Escort Cosworth in their garage.

Admittedly, some fairly terrible cars were also consigned to the scrapheap – several hundred Proton Personas, for example – and it goes without saying that some of the cars in the list probably would have been in such poor condition that the best thing for them was to recycle them to make something else. Scrapping a car under those circumstances is fine; I was hugely fond of my old Renault 5 and know they’ve got a cult following, but no amount of fondness was ever going to repair its body rot economically.

Yes, I know the Scrappage Scheme did act as a sort of defibrillator for the UK car market, giving it the jolt it needed at a desperate time, but any price that involves sacrificing a Jaguar XJ-S 45 times over is too high.

Hopefully we’ll never need the scheme again, but if we do I’d implore the powers-that-be to make sure perfectly good and very lovely old cars aren’t sent straight to the crusher. 

It’s too late to save the motoring heritage we lost five years ago, but we can stop it happening again.

The scrappage scheme: an alternative view

ONE of the region's MPs has called on motorists from across Sefton and West Lancashire to cash in their old banger for up to £2,000 off their new motor - before it's too late.

Life On Cars has featured views from those opposed to the scrappage scheme, who argue that it often leads to valuable classic cars being destroyed instead of the "bangers" it is intended to target.

But David Borrow, MP for South Ribble, said he was calling on motorists to take part in the Government's scrappage scheme, which allows motorists to trade in older motors for scrap in return for a discount on new cars, before the programme runs out of the funding allocated to it.

“Time is running out for you to get a great deal. If youve thought about trading in your old car now is the time to do it. The scheme is their to help so make the most of it now before the funding runs out,” he said.

“The Government's scrappage scheme has boosted our car industry at a time when it needs it most. Its a great example of how the Government's schemes are helping protect people and business through the recession. I'm very proud we didnt leave the industry to sink or swim as the Tories did in 1990s and would do today.”

The scrappage scheme was instigated by the Government last March to boost new car sales, including those built in the North West such as the Vauxhall Astra, Jaguar X-Type and Land Rover Freelander.

Under the scheme motorists are encouraged to trade in their cars, which can be any model registered before November 2000 on a 'V' registration, to be scrapped, and in return receive a discount of £2,000 off a brand new model.

Although the Government only pledges £1,000 to each scrappage deal, with the rest of the initial £2,000 being match-funded by the manufacturer, some car makers have been offering discounts of up to £6,000.

Mr Borrow said that as of last Thursday (January 14) 320,000 new vehicle orders were taken under the scheme since it was announced, and that there is now there is only funding for 82,000 new vehicles left.

My far more tempting scrappage idea

THOU shalt not be led into temptation.

I appreciate the authors of that particular statement didn't have the scrappage scheme in mind when they came up with it, but it's a temptation all the same, and one I'm going to resist.

In what other world is a banger you bought for less than £500 suddenly worth four times that? It's mighty tempting to take the bait and get a cool two grand off at whichever dealership's nearest to your house, but chances are you'll be killing off a future classic with years of life left in it.

For those of you who haven't been living in a cave since the scrappage scheme started and later got extended, some background. In a bid to bring new car sales back to pre-credit-crunch levels, Generous Gordon can give you £2,000 off your next new car, but only if you give him a decade-old one to get rid off. Worryingly, it doesn't matter whether it's a Mondeo or a Maserati - anything given in gets the crusher treatment.

I actually thought about taking my motor around some showrooms for a laugh, just to see how many salesman I could get to salivate at the prospect of chopping it in to boost their sales figures. Yes, I know I've got too much spare time on my hands.

The only problem is that I'd be led into the exotic world of cars that actually work properly, where Fiat 500s and Ford Kas would stare seductively at me with their promises of three-year warranties and NCAP safety ratings. Before I know it, I'd be £8,000 and a classic car down, and all because some smug salesman offered me a free cup of coffee.

What especially annoyed me was Hyundai's proclamation this week that they've saved a Morris Minor Traveller from the scheme to help raise funds for Children In Need, but it's drop-in-the-ocean stuff.

The way I see car makers getting their sales up is by actually making things people want to buy, and giving us poor petrolheads some money to help keep bits of our heritage from disappearing altogether.

£2,000 for anyone who keeps a cherished classic going? It's a tempting offer.

Reader involved in M1 accident

A LIFE ON CARS reader has been involved in an accident on one of Britain’s busiest motorways.

John Pugh, MP for Southport, got in touch to say that he, his daughter, and her boyfriend were involved in a collision on the outside lane of the M1 yesterday, in which the Ford Fiesta in which they were travelling was badly damaged.

You may remember his earlier piece on here, in which he revealed he was a keen supporter of some of the resort’s older cars – and an opponent of seeing them destroyed in the Government’s scrappage scheme.

More information on the crash will be featured in The Southport Champion on Wednesday (November 25), but I’d like to wish both he and his family a speedy recovery from the effects of a terrible accident.

A Champion of classic cars

SOUTHPORT'S MP has spoken this week of his bid to help save some of the town's most cherished classic cars from the UK-wide scrappage scheme.

John Pugh said on Monday (November 2) that although he could see the benefits of the scheme, which was extended in September in an effort to boost new car sales, he believed many classic cars were being unfairly destroyed.

"The other day I was lobbied as Lib Dem Treasury spokesman by representatives of the motor trade to back an extension of the 'successful' car scrappage scheme, and yes I saw the arguments for keeping the wheels of industry going, employment up etc but I have to say there were speaking to the wrong guy," he told Life On Cars.

"Backers of the scrappage scheme will tell you solemnly that these cars are not that fuel efficient but precisely because these cars are loved and cherished they are not driven much and therefore pollute less.

"They could actually be the green choice. Maybe the owners use public transport or bike a bit more because they clearly are people who think motoring should be an experience not a daily grind."

Dr Pugh, a keen reader of the Life On Cars motoring column in The Champion newspaper, said that he had seen many classic cars while canvassing in the town, including Triumph Stags, Ford Capris and Rover P4s, which he believes could be at risk of being lost forever if scrapped by their owners in order to get discounts on new cars.

A number of petitions and Facebook groups have been started by motorists opposed to the scheme, which gives new car buyers a £2000 discount if they scrap old motors more than a decade old.

However both the Government and the Society of Motor Manufacturers support the scheme, saying it helped boost the automotive industry in a time of recession.

"This is an extremely important decision that will inspire consumer and business confidence," said Paul Eviritt, SMMT's chief executive.

He added: "The additional 100,000 vehicles should help to counter the likely negative impacts of a return to the higher rate of VAT and the introduction of first year VED rates."

Dr Pugh, who drives around in a 1995 Toyota, is not among the 250,000 UK motorists who have taken advantage of the scheme.

Read more in The Southport Champion, published on November 4.

MiniAid

YOU could almost imagine Bob Geldof and his buddies singing songs to save cars like the one I’ve just driven.

Unfortunately, I can’t see the next re-release of Do They Know It’s Christmas being used to help rescue rotting old motors, so us mere mortals had to step in instead when it came to stopping this two-decade old Mini from meeting its maker.

And do you know what? I feel proud I’ve played my part.

Admittedly, it’s familiar territory – I already own one – but beneath £100’s worth of rot and rust is actually a perfectly good car, which if a few mates and I hadn’t stepped in to save would have been heading to a scrap yard this Friday.

People go on about saving puppies and small children but they never stop to think about the forgotten machines hiding behind hedges and in garages – machines that are part of our culture and heritage, yet are being squandered as part of the Government’s scrappage scheme.



I’m not going to deny that this 1989 Mayfair model’s not going to need a lot of TLC, but on a quick test drive it felt exactly the same as my own Mini. It’s not a rust bucket, but someone’s pride and joy that’s been cruelly forgotten.

The new owner’s one of these James May characters who already has two Ford Capris, a Golf GTi, a Metro, and a Ford Racing Puma, which already probably constitutes more cars than anyone could really need (and two don’t even work). But he’d bleed Castol R if you cut him, so he happily breached a self-imposed ban on any more motors to give an unloved Mini the care it deserves.

And even if he hadn’t stumped the £100 asking price, I probably would have just to make sure it’s got a loving home. You might worry about attaching so much sentiment to a machine, but the Flying Scotsman or Concorde wouldn’t be allowed to wither away either.

Forget Animal Hospital and trendy charity records. Do something really remarkable by rescuing an old car instead…

It's scrap, if you ask me

COULD you condemn a classic like this to the crusher?

It's a question which has got that little bit harder since the Government's scrappage scheme swung into action earlier this year, and - while it's done of sterling job of shedding the number of Nissan Sunnys out there - it's led to all sorts of glorious machines going to their grave.

Since the scheme was introduced in May I've heard tales of dozens of perfectly good cars being towed into the sunset, with the one of the most depressing being an ugly but practically unused Ford Scorpio which could have given a credit-crunched motorist years of joy.

But the worst case has this to be this 1958 Morris Minor with just 36,000 miles on the clock - that's an average of less than 800 miles a year - which the DVLA dealt an earlier death earlier this week.

Even the car's current owners (a certain Hyundai UK) couldn't bring themselves to kill a classic. As the car's already been issued a death certificate, it can never be legally driven on the road again, so they're searching frantically for a museum to save it. The trade-in, in case you're interested, was a Hyundai Coupe.

I know the scrappage scheme's got its plus points in a world ravaged by recession, but could you buy a knockdown Kia if you knew it would kill off an Austin-Healey for good?

I know I couldn't...