Death of a car...

The Department of Customs and Excise, in conjunction with the SA Police Services, "killed" a few cars last weekend at the Durban Motor Show. Wheels24 was there and took exclusive photographs.

The first car up was a Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo sports car worth around R200 000 on used car lots.

The car had been stolen in Japan and illegally shipped out to Durban, where it was driven for a while before being seized by the police.

Contact was made with the police in Japan, and subsequently with the owners - but the latter refused to pay to have the car shipped back as it was not worth their while.

The car was destroyed in a mobile crusher specially brought in for the occasion. With much grinding and crashing it was first crushed laterally, then longitudinally, until eventually it was a fraction of its original size.

Next up was an illegally imported "grey import" Toyota Camry which had been seized by Customs and Excise.

It was soon after this was dropped into the giant steel maw of the crusher that I decided to leave the scene, before the rest of the seven or eight cars had been put through the machine, as my stomach was turning at the sight of these cars being destroyed.

It wasn't so much the awesome noise, or the thought of all that cash value being reduced to scrap metal.

It was the plaintive B-E-e-e-e-e-p that trailed off to silence as the Camry let out a last "cry" for pity...