Tales of the Urban Explorer: Preston Motor Village

My second attempt at having a look around the doomed Preston Motor Village was going to be much better than the first.

Had I left it too late?

It was a year earlier when I had scouted out this big car showroom that had gone 'BOOM' overnight; the cause being a suspected arson attack.

In December 2018 the whole place went up in flames causing nearby residents to be temporarily evacuated. I saw some UX reports shortly after showing lots of cars lined up, all burnt out and rust in colour.

Source

It looked quite spectacular and I knew at some point that I needed to visit this one.

12 months beforehand I had visited, looked at the gates, and thought, 'impenetrable fortress’. With @dizzydiscovery in tow, it seemed that was no longer the case.

He seems to have a nose at finding weak spots but that can only get you so far. After a jaunt through some overgrown wasteland, a 10-foot drop was something neither of us was looking forward too.

Some kind soul had attached a very thick cord, so shimmying down a tree was fine, but hauling yourself back up? I’m not a participant of Gladiators and likely never will be.

@dizzydiscovery went down like a cat, he’s the shape I used to be 20 years ago and I’m quite jealous. After around 10 minutes of silence, he called me telling me to come down.

Fucking hell, here we go. I just about avoided getting hand burns on the cord and tried to slip down the same way he did and just made it only with the elegance of an elephant.

…’OK great, but how were we going to get out? A life-long diet of consuming rusty car did not seem appealing’…

It took me around 15 minutes to find @dizzydiscovery as the area is quite large.

The whole area looked like some kind of ‘rust city’, with piles of cars gelled together next to a rusty contraption of a former roof and housing.

I made my way through piles of rusty car parts and wheels to where I thought the amazing sight was going to be.

The sight was not quite what I imagined. Some sort of clean-up job had been done that involved car stacking.

Other piles contained part of what was the roof.

This dodgy-looking building was too dark for the most part to see anything. Due to all the climbing, my lighting equipment had been left in the car.

Some old car doors were all I could see in there.

After a call from @dizzydiscovery amounting to, ‘where the fuck are you’, we met and got into what was maybe the old offices.

There were a few cars in here that had survived the blaze, one being an old Mercedes. It has not done quite so well against the vandals.

The mandatory boiler room with instructions on usage!

A few parts complete with circuit boards.

.. and the mandatory toilet shot.

Of course, to stop the tedium of working, you need a book on the Third Reich. I did have a short read, quite interesting but a little out of place.

We left the offices to have a look again at what used to be the indoor showroom that once housed several hundred vehicles.

@dizzydiscovery reckons this was a Porche 911, what do you think?

The clumps of cars were a little disappointing compared to what I had seen beforehand.

That’s what you get for buggering about. In a few months, they may be gone altogether.

As for getting out, well… there's a much easier way, but I'm not spilling the beans on that!

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