Imagine opening up a long-abandoned parking garage and discovering eight cars that were left behind. According to an article in the Edinburgh News, these cars were abandoned 15 years ago when the parking garage was closed. The “Autosafe Carpark” opened in 2000 and closed in 2003 when the company went bankrupt. The eight abandoned cars were discovered in January when they began tearing down the building. The 600 space automated parking garage was supposed to be the future of parking. You drop your car off and it’s automatically stored. Insert your ticket when you return and your car is returned within 3 minutes. Did some people really lose their tickets and couldn’t get their cars back?
Unfortunately, these two cars were set ablaze in the process of demolition. Thankfully, they aren’t anything particularly special, but it’s still a bit of a bummer.
There were no windows in the garage, so the abandoned cars were not visible. The crew must have gotten a real surprise when they tore down the wall and discovered the cars.
The demolition company has removed the surviving six cars and plans to find a new life for them. Does anyone want to send away to Scotland for a well-used econobox stored indoors for 15 years? What do you think the parking fees will be for about 5,500 days? As to why these cars were left behind, the most likely answer is that these cars were purchased by the builder for testing.
Must have been quite a bender to forget a car for 15 years… imagine the tale you’d need to tell the wife on that one!
Just tell her it was stolen and/or set on fire ! Yes, honesty works best with the Mrs and I.
Have seen plenty of cases where impound fees get to be too much to claim a vehicle. Doesn’t seem quite right (?) fun read at least !
Reminds me of the Monty Python segue: “…and now for something completely different…”
Direct from the ministry of silly walk! Your comment on my write up may just be the best I’ve ever received! Thank you!
I wonder if the folks at Swansea, in Wales, where a record of every vehicle on British roads is recorded on their computers, could identify the owners, via the registration (licence plate) numbers. Vehicles in Britain not registered for the road are supposed to be what is known as “SORNED” but I believe SORN would have been introduced since these vehicles were abandoned…only adding to the beareaucratic nightmare of re-registration ! (I’ve lived away from Britain so long I’m not sure what SORN stands for…sorry)
Statutory Off Road Notification
Think I’ll just go to Scotland and forget the cars.
I wonder if you could still file an insurance claim !
I read somewhere that the cars were part of a systems test of the garage, and as such they were even moved around at first. It seems like a much more plausible reason for their being there than owner abandonment.
That’s where that rental ended up. Long weekend.
Thanks Barn Finds.
Rental cars. LOL. In Alaska we had a joke about rental cars
Question: What’s the difference between a 4 wheel drive truck and a rental car
Answer: A rental car will go ANYWHERE.
Meaning since it’s a rental car, abuse the heck out of it.
But then they charge you a $300 cleaning fee if it comes back smelling like fish!
Almost like opening an old Hot Wheels case and finding some…
1980’s models…would be ok,but not life changing,…..finding some redlines
Would be awesome…!..These owners have been walking a long time….😂..!
Donate these to Uber…?..?🤔..!!…Lol……!
Well now, if a certain Corvette shows up there, we’ll know where it went after the original owner found out about it showing up in an auction.
Or maybe fell from the sink hole at the corvette museum. Lol
These have been all over jalopnik for a bit. They were tester cars for the garage, I don’t remember what they all were but don’t remember them being anything special.
I worked with a guy who was new to town. Went out one night and forgot what lot he parked his car in. Had to rent a car and drove around every night for over a week with his key fob, going from garage to garage looking
for his car until he found it. So, it happens.
He eventually got fired.
I met a guy once up in michigan who said he went to the Miracle Mile one night and had parked his Chevy Van on the street. Well he started at one end went from bar to bar having a beer at each one. He did manage to make it back to where he started but could find his van. So he reported it stolen. The next day when he could see clearly again he went back down there and found his van. He was so happy. He gets in and starts to go home he gets pulled over and snatched out of his van and slammed to the street cuffed and taken downtown to the jail and was booked for driving a stolen van. Took him 3 hours to convince then it was his van. LMAO
It’s a little surprising they went bankrupt. I wonder what happened.
I lived in Hoboken NJ in the late 90’s, and we had a new automated garage that had been built and never opened. The story I heard was they couldn’t get the software for the automation to work properly, and then the builder skipped town with the funds. I moved away that year and don’t know if they ever got it working.
Chebby, when you moved away that year, were there perhaps, you know, like 7, I.T. guys with you on the bus ?
Had a friend get really drunk one late night and tried to drive across railroad tracks and got his car stuck. Left it on the tracks and walked away. The following day he couldn’t remember where he’d left the car that his parents had a loan on.
That’s about two miles from my flat.
The nearest burning car’s an Austin Maestro – can’t see the other one.
Rental cars. LOL. In Alaska we had a joke about rental cars
Question: What’s the difference between a 4 wheel drive truck and a rental car
Answer: A rental car will go ANYWHERE.
Meaning since it’s a rental car, abuse the heck out of it. It’s ?not as if you own it.
Ditto Maui, Bali, Vietnam, and a couple of others I forgot……..;-)
That really is a bummer. It’s one thing to abandon a parking garage to be demolished, but why leave the cars there to suffer the same fate? I would think whoever owned the cars would remove them, or have them removed before the demolition.
They all appear to be Austin Maestros and Fiat Uno’s!