7:47 am, January 29, 2023
As I’m sure you’re all aware, one of the few perks of working in the used car trade is that if ever you need a particular type of vehicle for a particular type of job, you can usually pluck something from stock to tick whatever box needs ticking.
And when ‘borrowing’ a 2008 VW Passat estate from my lot the other week to do a tip run, I remembered with a wry smile the last time I’d borrowed a Passat estate almost 30 years ago.
At the time, I had two young children and we’d booked one of those ready-to-go camping holidays in the south of France.
I’d recently left the main dealership world behind and had set up a used forecourt with a business partner on the western outskirts of Birmingham.
A couple of weeks before we set off, the perfect car came in from the auction: a tidy, high-mileage maroon Passat wagon with a frugal turbodiesel under the bonnet – just the ticket for a 1,600-mile round trip to the French Riviera.
We’d enjoyed eight out of 10 nights away in the sunshine, only to be met with apparent disaster the day before we were due to drive home.
I unzipped the tent in the morning, went out to have a cigar – and discovered a big gap outside the tent where I’d parked the car the evening before.
Having your car stolen while on holiday is somewhat sub-optimal, especially when all your passports and travel documents are in the glovebox (the first and only time I’ve ever made that mistake).
So imagine my relief when the car was discovered abandoned in the nearest village, the only damage being to the steering lock and ignition barrel, which could easily be sorted once I got back home.
I walked into the village, retrieved the Passat and drove it home, hotwiring the ignition every time I needed to start it.
The rest of the journey passed without event, and once back at base, I ordered a used ignition lock from my local friendly VW breaker, tidied it all up and put the car on the forecourt at £2,495, assuming that’d be the last time it went missing.
But I was wrong…
Two days later, I came into work to find the Passat had disappeared off the lot, and this time I didn’t expect it to turn up in the local village.
Big Mike had a shock while on a camping holiday in France when he stepped outside the tent in the morning to have a cigar
That was partly because Birmingham had a different class of car thief to rural France, and partly because I lived in a sprawling metropolis where the nearest village was in a different county.
Imagine my surprise then when the car was found just a few miles down the road, again undamaged and with hardly any mileage accrued by whoever had helped themselves to it.
I recovered it, ordered another set of locks and reduced the price so that I could sell it before the rule of threes dictated that it’d get stolen again.
Sadly, I’d still not heard the end of it…
The new owner decided to go on holiday to France himself but only got as far as Dover before it attracted the attention of a sniffer dog and he was ushered into a special booth, where his car and clothing were stripped.
He was, of course, innocent and sent on his way, but Customs and Excise did find several traces of Class A substances inside the panels of the rear load bay and under the back seat.
I later discovered that there was a drug-smuggling gang operating out of Birmingham at the time, with a supply line of the finest African marching powder finding its way to the UK via Gibraltar.
The smugglers were driving it through Europe into France, whereupon they’d find a British family on holiday, steal their car and fill all of its inner body panels with cocaine, sometimes with a street value of almost a million quid.
Once the car was back in the UK, they’d nick it again and retrieve their contraband.
Unbeknownst to me and my brood, we’d driven all the way from Cap d’Agde to Bromsgrove with thousands and thousands of pounds worth of drugs on board.
The smugglers had been clever enough to realise that the people least likely to be stopped and interrogated at Dover were young families driving back from holiday with a boot full of beach balls and cheap red wine.
As for the Passat, I actually bought it back as the buyer was – understandably – somewhat put off owning it.
But rather than even attempt to sell it again, we used it as our family car for the next seven years and put another 100k on the clock – even daring to take it on a couple more French trips. We named it Charlie.
This column appears in the current edition of Car Dealer – issue 179 – along with news, views, reviews, interviews and much more! Read and download it for free here!
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