Loyal to the end

Old-school vehicle breakers' yards are rare these days, but a handful of marque specialists are soldiering on to provide a vital service. John Evans pays one a visit

-  John Evans

There are scrapyards - and there's Lakes Autos. You can see it from the AI at Wyboston, a village in Bedfordshire, somewhere between Luton and Peterborough. The road is hardly scenic, but Lakes' jumble of discarded motors is like a kind of ancient forest, albeit of rusting metal rather than trees. You don't see its like much. Not these days. New rules intended to clean up the industry have forced the closure of many small and independent vehicle breakers and sent the dodgy ones off into the shadows.

It leaves Lakes as one of the few remaining old-school breakers' yards. But it's one with a difference: it breaks only Volvos.

Wandering the three acres of disintegrating motors (there are around 400 of them, probably more, and the site occupies 14 acres in all) is like taking a journey back in time: 960s, 940s, 740s, 850s, even an ancient 244 DL. They're reminders of Volvo's golden age, and the discarded engines that litter the place recall a time when electric cars were just a glint in a politician's eye.

Lakes is owned by Barry Coppen. With his two brothers, sadly no longer with us, the 77-year-old inherited the petrol station and garage that was previously on the site, plus all the surrounding land, from his father. Coppen was born in London and trained as an engineer, working first on early prototypes of Concorde and the Jaguar attack jet before going into industry.

On the death of his parents 30 years ago, he relocated to his father's old business to work with his brothers, but ambition soon took hold.