Once hailed as Britain’s most technologically advanced parking garage, Autosafe Skypark has laid empty for 15 years. Almost empty, that is, since eight vehicles were left behind when the 600-space facility closed its doors in 2003 after just two years in business.
Now the garage, which used lifts and “robot shuttles” to shuffle cars around, is being demolished. And, as the demolition progressed on Wednesday, Feb. 7, some of the abandoned cars went up in flames, taking the secrets of their solitude with them.
It seems the cars were set ablaze due to the demolition work, which included cutting the metal structure apart. Firefighters reported no casualties.
The rescued vehicles provide a hope the mystery of their abandonment may yet be solved.
An online discussion ensued and multiple media picked up the story. Some people speculated the company simply locked the cars inside as the place closed down. Some opined the owners may have forgotten where they left their cars due to intoxication.
The key to the mystery lies in the corner of the cars’ windshields, according to Ronnie Meredith, a bus driver from Edinburgh who worked in the Autosafe Skypark in 2001.
“We had a few scrap cars. I remember one being an Austin Maestro and we also had a Lada and a long wheelbase Volvo,” he said.
That’s why nobody ever claimed the cars, Meredith said.
“I find it funny how people think that these cars were abandoned,” he said. ”Even if the place had its doors shut by administrators they would have still legally be entitled to retrieve their own personal vehicle.”
Since road tax windshield stickers were only abandoned in 2014, scrap cars should be easily identified by the lack of the disc-shaped mark, Meredith said.
“If anyone looked at the windscreens of these cars they would no doubt have noticed that none of them had a tax disc which was still a legal requirement back then if the car was being used on the road.”
Indeed, ieya404’s picture shows the Austin Maestro’s windshield unspoiled.
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