Worth to earth, crashes to ashes, lust to dust… With apologies to the Order for the Burial of the Dead, I ponder the skeletal remains of a Lamborghini Jalpa perched on top of a large metal container at car breaker Eurospares in Essex.
It’s a moving sight awaiting anyone who wanders around the back of the firm’s nerve centre, located in a bustling industrial estate just outside Halstead, near Colchester. However, there’s worse – much worse – inside one of Eurospares’ seven vast storage buildings.
On racks, and looking just like a child’s toy car collection, are the shells of six gorgeous Italian sports cars – three Ferrari 308 GT4s, a 348, a 458 and one Lamborghini. On the floor below, and to the side, is a Ferrari 599 GTB minus its wheels, windows, interior and most of its bodywork. A few mountings are all that remain of its V12.
Nearby stands a deformed Ferrari 612 Scaglietti with half a side missing, a brace of Maserati GTs – although owing to huge impact damage, barely recognisable as such – and a 458 reduced to its roof.
I need a stiff drink. James Pumo, owner of Eurospares, offers me an espresso, before telling me his story.
“My dad was a hairdresser,” he says. I scan the room for bits of Mazda MX-5. “He had a couple of salons in Manchester and used to go back to Italy to buy his hairdryers. One day a Ferrari dealer asked him if he’d pick up some spares from the factory on his next trip. Dad quickly realised that, with his Italian contacts, he could make a business supplying parts for Ferrari and Lamborghinis, which is how we started.”
Although Eurospares salvages lots of parts from the sports cars that it breaks (in the past 10 years, hundreds of Ferraris but only 15 Lamborghinis), many are new items bought from bankrupt dealers and garages – following the 2008 economic crash, the Middle East was a rich source – as well as remanufactured components from a web of global suppliers.
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I thought this was a good
I thought this was a good article,I watch a lot of these US car remod shows on TV and there are lots of them.Even in Canada there are amazing little shops where you would least expect them, dealing with all sorts of mods and restorations, UK is of course the same, but NONE of them reveal HOW EXPENSIVE it is.Nostalgic it may be, but nothing will compare to the newest model you can buy, such is the huge progress in even 10 years [thinking of my own cars, not even my children's']
Apart from that.
What an interesting place, makes you wonder why you'd pay Garage prices if you can get a salvaged part.
Peter Cavellini wrote:
Perhaps the same reason in general that you wouldn't put part worn tyres on your wheels...would you do that also?.
Used.
I often buy"part-worn"`tyres
Why wouldn't I? I even applied the same principle when getting married :) :)
Pietro Cavolonero wrote:
Indeed you would, not wholly surprising to those who have consumed your posts with such unbridled pleasure...another quality that you possess in spades...loyalty, still whoever the unlucky chap is, he has made the ultimate sacrifice, by marrying you, he has ensured that you don't make anyone elses life something of a trial.
Hoard, not horde