VIDEO: Man crushes car at Silverlake Automotive Recycling in Shedfield

After a speedy performance, dismantling a car in the quickest time at Curdridge Country Show, Luke Beirne from Botley won the opportunity to crush a car at Silverlake Automotive Recycling in Shedfield.

READ MORE: Joiner wins chance to crush a car at Silverlake's vehicle recycling site in Shedfield

The competition’s aim was to highlight the centre’s upickit yard, where the public can come and dismantle their own car parts from old cars.

The carpenter and joiner crushed a Ford Focus into a compact block as his prize for winning the time trial on the morning of Monday, August 15.

Luke, who owns LB Shepherd Huts, said: “I was very excited, it’s a bit of a strange thing to do on a Monday morning.

“It was good fun, it was carnage in the yard. It was a bit like robot wars watching the diggers rip everything to pieces- pretty mad.

“I had to use the trigger to fold the box over- whatever the technical term is, but I crushed it good and proper. I was surprised how strong it was, it didn’t seem to struggle at all.

“My day job is not as messy as that, there were a lot of car parts on the floor but it was good fun.

Tom Harvey, development manager of the facility, said: “The grab hands picked the car up and put it into the bailer and then it works on a remote-control box so Luke controlled the bailor through the remote controls. It’s a big boy’s toy.

“It’s nice for people to come into the business and see what we do. Locally, we’ve got a very strong brand- everybody knows Silverlake. But if you follow that up with the second question of ‘what do they do?’ that’s not so easy for people to articulate. So actually, getting people on site to see Silverlake in motion is great for us. We take our corporate, social responsibility seriously.

“We do like to give back to the community, which is why we support things like the Curdridge Show. We also want to be an employer of choice, and that helps to showcase Silverlake as a business, people to come the show and see us.”

Marketing manager Aimee Cross added: “It was great. When he was up there, he was like ‘oh my god this is amazing’, looking at what the other cranes were doing at the same time as what we were doing ourselves. And when you see parts removed with such ease. It just looks so simple and easy.

“He was so competitive on the day he had three attempts to try and beat the time and he was so excited, like a little boy. So today was a nice thing to do for him.”

Luke, 32, dismantled a coil pack and two spark plugs from a Vauxhall Corsa in a winning time of 48 seconds at the county show in July.

The Silverlake stand at the 63rd Curdridge Country Show was also invited kids to colour in a car and be photographed with one of the C1 race cars. The eco-friendly company is the headline sponsor of C1 racing, encouraging the cars to use its recycled parts.

All proceeds from the stand went to the year long charity initiative UDondateacar.com. So far the car company has raised £12,000 of its £20,000 target which will go towards Global’s Make Some Noise. The charity partner distributes funding to small, local charities that need it.

SEE ALSO: Frosty the drill rapper jailed for seven years for drug dealing in Winchester

Ninety-six per cent of all cars and parts that go to the automotive recycling hub get re-used, even down to the gases from the air conditioning. Silverlake has around 19,000 items listed on ebay as well as weekly auctions and the company’s upickit yard.

Development manager Tom said: “We want to get people away from the scrap yard mentality. It’s quality second hand parts.

“The focus over the last couple of years has been around the culture and the mindset. It’s about driving the quality and really pushing the green parts agenda, delivering through the people in the business. We’re a large family business now, employing over 130 people so the people strategy becomes particularly important.”

Silverlake can hold up to 4000 cars, with around 350 cars arriving a day to be recycled or go into the upickit yard.

For more go to silverlake.co.uk/.