monday morning is spent washing the truck , loading the trailer and sorting out the paperwork before heading down to portsmouth to catch the afternoon boat to caen where i pull off and call it a night in the docks . day 2 is a straight drive down but i decide to go the a28 and a10 rather than nantes , i still get south of bordeaux to aire muret and its about 15 mins quicker than rennes , nantes way , this turned out to be the hotest day of the trip at 31 degrees .
day 3 is a quick drive down to irun 
then down to san sebastian and across to vitoria then burgos , after a coffee and sandwich its the a62 down round valladolid then the a6 towards la coruna and onto the a52 towards vigo where after a hundred k or so i park up for the night , 13 degrees it topped today . weather is shot to bits .
day 4 starts rainy but clears up i head down the n532 and enter portugal through a small crossing near chaves
then its about 130 k to the town of felgueiras for the 1st car , it turned out to be fun to find . i was told to head for the town square and turn left at the bollard , what he didnt say was which bollard . 
. i finally found it and loaded a citroen xsara picasso 
. not too bad to load . then its off to porto and straight down to lisbon and stay just south of there after going over the seriously long bridge
day 5 turned out to be a straight drive again down to the algarve then across into spain going round seville and across the 92 to antequera then down to malaga where i ended up parking to monday lunchtime in the services overlooking malaga
i get a call around lunchtime on day 8 and go and load 3 stolen / recovered cars near by , a vw bora , a bmw m3 and a merc 320 
. then its back to waiting for 2 more to be released , day 9 lunchtime im told to forget them and head for orihuela , so its across the 92 past granada to just north of murcia where i stay near the town for the night . day 10 i find the opel garage easy enough then spend ages there trying to get the car released which i did . an astra van on a 56 plate with only 6000 on the clock 
after a phone call its head north past alicante , valencia and barcelona where i park up near girona .
day 11 its up to la jonquera 
then up to montpellier and up the a75 to claremont ferrand and up the a71 where i end up about 200 k from paris for the night . day 12 sees me in search of a ford garage in massy , just south of paris where i load a transit van onto the trailer , what a cow to load , notice the angle of the wheel 
. in the end i blocked both front wheels and dragged it on . a quick sprint round paris and its straight down the a13 to caen for the afternoon boat with 8 coaches and screaming kids running around the cabin corridors and chucking chairs from deck 9 to deck 8 , bless them eh , yeah right … i get off and park in chichester for the night then back to the yard saturday morning . this mercedes was in the yard 
that was good reading…quality pics too.
Nice one, enjoyed that.
Good read and pics, MM.
I’d have never realised that there was enough demand for UK vehicles to be recovered from Spain etc. Are they mostly stolen or crashed? How many per year do you bring back and are there many other operators doing the same?
I suppose I just thought that they would’ve been sent back in a container.
hi mate , i dont think there are many firms doing it , certainly a few though . we work for insurance firms doing crashed cars from all over europe and sometimes further , its mostly stolen ones out of spain we do , there are hundreds down there its a question of finding them and also getting them released from the spanish authorities . we have 5 trucks on international side and at certain times of the year we are all flat out , other tmes its steady . we get stolen ones containered back from places like singapore , middle east places further away where going to get them isnt an option . we cover the whole of europe , next trip might be france or finland , germany or greece , could be anywhere . it all depends how well people drive i guess or how lucky or unlucky they are as to how many we bring back , certainly in the thousands each year .
If you were planning a coach trip that one would be hard to beat. Have you got a winch on that rig?
hi harry , yes it has got a winch fitted for dragging them up its also got smoother decks than normal transporters to help drag them on . its more a 5 car recovery truck than a transporter .
excellent read mr monk.
i didnt know that type of job exists… and its a niche market the poles cant invade.
Just so good. Brilliant photos and story!
Cracking diary. Thanks.
What I’ve always wanted to ask is, are there sensors on the hydraulic lift? you know, so you get the correct height of the top deck? or do you manually adjust? (apologies if this is a daft question)
hi mate , not a daft question at all . every load is different and there is no sensor on the truck , it is all done either by line of sight or a good old fashioned tape measure , it all depends what cars you load , sometimes you can let tyres down to gain a few inches and it depends what country your in , france , spain not normally a problem but holland , germany there are lots of 4m bridges to watch out for .
jessicas dad:
its a niche market the poles cant invade.
yup great post and pics - would agree with the first point JD - sadly not the second bugger though!
the poles and lithuanians are buying insurance write offs like they are going out of fashion and shipping them out , ive heard 2 reasons , one is they are repairing them in pl and lt then bringing them back for sale , the other is they are shipping them out , repairing them and converting them to lhd and selling them in the east . not sure which one to believe myself , but at least they not doing my job … yet .
Brilliant photos and interesting story
im glad everyone liked the diary , there will be a new one when im back from my next trip , wherever that may be to …
mad monk:
the poles and lithuanians are buying insurance write offs like they are going out of fashion and shipping them out , ive heard 2 reasons , one is they are repairing them in pl and lt then bringing them back for sale , the other is they are shipping them out , repairing them and converting them to lhd and selling them in the east . not sure which one to believe myself , but at least they not doing my job … yet .
great diary and read, that looks like a heck of an interesting job, alwas different
i recently sold a golf with no mot on e bay, within hours of listing it an estonian phoned wanting to pay cash, drove up the next night paid cash on the spot said it was going straight to harwich for a boat, and they are always looking to buy german cars for export regardless of mot, i think a lot are used for spares
I drove out to Daugavpils in Latvia last year for a speedway meeting & had to drive through Lithuania to get there. They have massive compounds full of cars from the west in various states. It is like Carcraft meets scrapyard, there are loads of people hanging around waiting for the next transporter of 20 year old cars to arrive. It appeared to me as if the cars from GB were just for spares.
I don’t think they can have much of an MOT system in Lithuania, most of the cars I followed were belching out clouds of smoke & a lot of these cars had been converted to gas.
when i was in latvia with work near the end of last year i saw an ex brian curran (of yorkshire? blue with yellow stripes) scania now latvian registered, not sure if it was originally lhd, but certainly is now!
Have just read your post,a great read and wonderful photos
as well,hope to read your next one soon,