Stockpiling new cars in England on old Airforce bases where are they storing them in the USA ?

[Mark Gregory]

Now, where did we park the car? Thousands of unwanted new and used motors are stored on airfield as coronavirus slump hits economy

• Thurleigh Airfield in Bedfordshire is being used to hold thousands of unsold cars
• Former RAF base is now a storage site amid fears over future of motor industry 
• This comes as British economy slumped by 20 percent in April amid coronavirus 

Graham Hoare, chairman of Ford of Britain told the BBC: 'Dealerships being open is a fundamental requirement to selling cars,' he says. 'The vast majority of our products go through dealerships.

'Opening those dealerships… that really unblocks the cork out of the bottle that then allows the whole manufacturing system to flow.

'That's already happened on the continent - in Germany and the rest of Europe. It's building, and we need to do the same here.'

Thurleigh Airfield has been used as a holding area for the government's car scrappage scheme that saw a huge backlog build up at sites across the country.

A new scrappage scheme offering electric vehicle buyers £6,000 for trading in older diesel or petrol models will be launched in July with the aim of boosting the economy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[capngrog]

It's interesting that the headline of the story has nothing to do with the body of the story, which, in itself, says nothing.  Disused (abandoned)  WWII era airfields in the U.K. have been used to store excess inventories of cars for a number of years now.  For example, if one goes to Google Earth to locate Thurleigh Airfield, one would see that much of the airfield is taken up by car parking and that the photo is dated 06/01/2009.  One can use Google Earth to explore other old U.K. airfields, and one would find many of them over run by parked automobiles.  I'm not sure why all of those cars are parked around various U.K. airfields, but it  could be due to excess new car inventory, or the U.K. Scrappage program (which lasted for a bit less than one year: 2009-2010).  The bottom line is, that perhaps some of the cars seen parked on the airfield are due to a business downturn because of the Chinaflu; however, a significant number were already parked before anyone even heard of the Wuhan Flu breakout.

 

While information is important, perspective means everything.

 

Cheers,

Grog

Edited June 15, 2020 by capngrog
change awkward wording of late night post (see edit history)

[capngrog]

I recalled that another event, which may explain the parking of cars on disused airfields in the U.K., was the VW "Dieselgate" (U.S. term) which came to a head in 2015.  I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but what I've found from the ol' Interweb is that approximately 8.5 million vehicles were recalled in Europe (including 2.4 million in Germany and 1.2 million in the U.K.) and 500,000 in the U.S.  It was reported that due to a California court decision, VW offered to "buy back" many of the affected vehicles.  I don't know if the "buy back" program was instituted in other countries, but it would not surprise me.

 

I enjoy finding old airfields via Google Earth, and I recall a "repurposed" (no longer an active airfield) airfield in the Southwestern U.S. that was covered with "bought back" VW automobiles.

 

Cheers,

Grog

[39BuickEight]

Dealers here are selling cars at a record pace over the last month.

[39BuickEight]

2 minutes ago, plymouthcranbrook said:

I have read that as well.  Especially new cars.  Apparently many now prefer to drive to where they are going to minimize human interaction.  Can’t help but wonder if the upcoming Hertz bankruptcy will affect this or if, by the time any disposal of assets occurs, it will be to late to have any effect.

It won’t.  The Hertz cars will be swallowed up by Enterprise and SIXT.  SIXT might actually just buy out Hertz completely.

[edinmass]

We have lots and an airfield near me in Palm Beach County that look like that. I don’t think any rental fleet will be buying the cars.......cash flow dictates the number of units needed. I recommend people wait another 60 days before they pull the trigger on a rental deal......it’s too early and the prices have not adjusted to the market........YET.......there’s going to be blood in the streets on Jed and new cars soon. 

[TerryB]

My first thought on the photo was all the VW diesels that were bought back and were being stored.  There is a good video out on the web on how VW was caught in their deception by some grad students trying to find out how VW was able to make such a clean running diesel.   Their research led to CA running their own testing and finding out the diesel test was rigged by VW.