Fire Strikes Cars That Were Trapped In A 'Robot Car Park' For 15 Years

One of the weirdest car stories last month concerned an automated car park in Edinburgh. The company operating the facility went bust in 2003, forcing the ‘Autosafe SkyPark’ to close its doors for good a mere two years after opening. Oh, and it was shut with cars still inside.

Eight vehicles were uncovered a few weeks ago by the demolition firm which is currently tearing the place down, making us all wonder firstly how they got stuck there, and secondly what would happen to them. Well, the latter question has now been partly answered: at least two of them have been torched…

During the demolition work several of the cars were set on fire, as spotted by this Twitter user. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service were called in, but thankfully in the end it was only the cars that were harmed.

“There were no casualties. Crews left the scene at 12:23 after ensuring the area was made safe,” a spokeperson from the fire service told BBC News.

Rumours of cars being ‘trapped’ in SkyPark had been doing the rounds for many years, with various theories put forward as to how they got there. One urban legend claimed the car park was simply locked up before owners were able to remove their cars, but the most likely answer is more mundane - someone who claimed to have worked at SkyPark said on Facebook that numerous “bangers” were purchased to test the complex mechanical system. Given the kinds of cars that were spotted in the place last month - including a Fiat Uno and an Austin/MG Maestro - it’s certainly a believable explanation.

The former employee also explained that the automated aspect of the car park was particularly unreliable. “Many a time we had to got inside and manually retrieve the cars using a joystick,” he explained.

Last month, Hermes Investment Management, the company redeveloping the car park’s site, said: “The owners of the cars are unknown and they are now the property of the demolition company who will remove the cars once work begins on the levels on which they are located.”