Williams is taking legal action against former garage owner Peter Thorpe after a historic Formula 1 car allegedly disappeared. The British team is seeking £1 million ($1.34 million) from Thorpe for the return of its rare FW23, valued at £750,000 ($1.01 million). The car was driven by Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya during the 2001 F1 season.The FW23 was loaned to Autotech Performance Ltd in 2015. It was supposed to be displayed at the company’s garage in Telford. Williams later asked for the car to be returned, but the team says it received no response. Autotech has since been liquidated and dissolved.
Williams seeks return of its missing FW23 car or $1.3 million
Williams says the FW23 is part of its unique collection of heritage Formula 1 cars. Only nine examples of the car were manufactured. The team claims it strictly controls the use and sale of its historic cars to help preserve them.According to Williams’ court case, the team loaned the car to Autotech in 2015 under a “Historic Car Loan Agreement.” The agreement allowed the company to keep the car until October 2021.Williams then contacted Autotech that year and asked to inspect the car. The team also terminated the loan. However, it says there was no response.Williams’ lawyers claim the car was later removed from the garage. They allege Thorpe wrongly told a valuer working on Autotech’s liquidation that he personally owned the vehicle.“The car is part of the claimant’s unique collection of its own heritage cars, the use or sale of which it strictly controls inter alia [among other things] to ensure so far as possible that they are preserved”, Williams’ barrister Richard Clegg said while setting out the claim in the case papers.He added, “In 2015, the claimant agreed to loan the car to Autotech on the terms of a document entitled “Historic Car Loan Agreement” which terms were known and agreed to by Autotech.”Williams also claims the car remained at the company’s premises until its voluntary liquidation. The team says the vehicle was removed sometime after the liquidation process began.Thorpe, however, strongly disputes the allegations. He says he does not know where the car is and denies telling anyone that he owned it.His lawyer Duncan MacPherson said, “He does not know who in fact owned the car then or now. The defendant closed the business of Autotech on 30 June 2021. The defendant suffered a stroke on 7 October 2018 that caused him cognitive impairment,”Thorpe says he last saw the FW23 at the premises on August 8, 2021, when Autotech’s assets were being valued.His defence states, “The defendant admits that the car was at the premises on 8 August 2021, but does not admit whether it remained there until December 2021, because this lies outside his knowledge.”He also said he “believes that he has not told anyone that he owned the car, because he knew this to be untrue”.The case was filed at the High Court in London. It has not yet reached a full trial. Williams said it has “full faith in the legal system” to resolve the dispute.