£100,000 McLaren among £67m worth of seized cars saved from the crusher

A McLaren 720S worth more than £100,000 along with a £114,000 Mercedes G-Class and more than quarter of a million pounds’ worth of Range Rovers and Land Rovers have been saved from being sold off or crushed after being seized by police. The supercar and luxury off-roaders were among £67 million worth of vehicles destined to be auctioned or scrapped after their drivers were caught using them without insurance. However, through cap hpi’s Crushwatch scheme they were identified as belonging to finance or leasing companies and returned to their legal owners. The figures for the first half of 2020 represent a record number and value of vehicles recovered through the scheme, despite the effects of lockdown, and in June police notified finance firms of more than £12.7m worth of seized vehicles, including the McLaren, Mercedes, four Range Rovers and a Land Rover. Last year nearly £138m of uninsured vehicles including Lamborghinis, Rolls-Royces and McLarens were returned to finance houses after being linked through the Crushwatch scheme. The initiative was set up 2009 to allow police forces across the UK to check vehicles before disposal and uses cap hpi’s comprehensive database of financed vehicles to identify cars that have been confiscated from uninsured drivers and then notify the rightful owners, usually the finance houses which arranged the original purchase agreement. Tom Ingram, head of customer operations at cap hpi said: “Halfway through the year, we are looking at a total value of vehicles of over £67m and over £12.7m for June alone, which indicates the problem is increasing year on year despite the presence of a global pandemic. “Through an ongoing collaborative approach with police forces throughout the UK, we can help the leasing and finance companies to minimise losses and increasingly find resolution for the problem.” The latest figures reveal that the five brands whose cars are most likely to be identified and returned to finance or leasing bodies through the scheme are BMW, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Vauxhall vehicles, together totalling £6.8m in June.