Submerged sports car wasn’t a real Porsche 356, but it is still an unfortunate story.
Imagine that you work at a luxury car dealership in London and while working one day, you hear a crash outside. You run out to see what happened and a Porsche 356 that belongs to the dealership is floating in the canal behind the building. According to the U.K.’s Evening Standard, that is almost what happened recently to Kalvin Cauldwell, owner of AutoVero luxury and classic cars in London, England.
The only difference here is that the Porsche 356 that was floating in the canal was a 2004 Chesil 356 Speedster, a replica of the real thing built on a Volkswagen Beetle. However, it is still a sad story for any sports car fan, as we can all imagine how awful it would be if this happened to one of our cars.
Truck Versus Porsche
On the evening of October 3, a delivery driver in a large van was maneuvering through the car park used by AutoVero luxury and classic cars in London. At some point, the driver of that van lost control in a tight spot, shoving the Porsche replica out of the parking area and into the Regent’s Corral. Cauldwell was working in his shop on a Ferrari when he heard the noise. When he ran out to find out what was going on, he saw the sickening scene shown here.
The 2004 Chesil 356 Speedster, a replica of the Porsche 356 worth about $40,000 US dollars was submerged in water up over the lights. The water wasn’t deep enough to completely hide the car, but it was deep enough to flood the car’s engine and electrical system likely making the replica a complete loss.
The bigger problem is that the canal is recessed far below street level, making it a challenge to remove the car with a conventional tow vehicle. However, this cant be the first time that a car has ended up in one of London’s canals, so surely someone in the area knows how to remove a vehicle from the man-made river without doing more damage.
It is unclear whether this 2004 Chesil 356 Speedster was owned by a customer or by the dealership, but in either case, Cauldwell is preparing to file a fairly unusual insurance claim. We have to wonder why the delivery company isn’t responsible for the damages, but in any case, the odds are good that this car will have to undergo major repairs to become drivable.
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"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.
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"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.
