Reading about the loss in ‘value’ of cars owned by Jimmy Savile, and the bleating of those who are either going to take a hit on potential profit, or in one case, having to hide away a car and remove it from sale listings, it struck me that these cars weren’t bought by those who wanted to enjoy the allure of a car owned by one of their heroes, but simply to cash in on the notion of celebrity. 

Plenty of other cars have had notorious histories. Whether we are talking Mercedes and its association with Nazi staff cars, the smell of Reichsmarks funding the ‘glorious’ Silver Arrows racers or a simple grey Tatraplan pulling up outside a system-built Soviet apartment block to spirit away a young boy’s Father and make him one of the ‘disappeared’, cars can be used in hateful ways. You could argue that it isn't the cars fault that owners use them for evil purposes. No car, to my knowledge, has yet achieved the anthropomorphic heights of malevolence portrayed on-screen in the Steven King film classic 'Christine'. 

But here's a question: can the healing hand of history redeem the resident evil of some of these cars with wicked associations? Maybe factoring into this notional cost the redemption price paid by people living under oppression helps?

Yet for cars associated with unspeakable crimes such as Jimmy Savile's there’s only one solution: these cars should be crushed forthwith.