Businessman faces mammoth insurance claim after £30k luxury car is accidentally knocked into canal

A luxury car worth £30,000 has come to a watery end after it was accidentally knocked into a canal by a passing delivery van.

Efforts are being made to try and fish the 2004 Chesil 356 Speedster, which was parked outside AutoVero luxury and classic cars, from the Regent’s Canal in Islington, north London.

Watching the efforts to try and recover the two-seater soft top from Wenlock Basin, AutoVero’s owner and director Kalvin Cauldwell said: ‘It could have been much worse.’

Mr Cauldwell said that despite the odd joke from passers-by including one wit saying ‘I bet it will get a ticket soon’, he was glad there were no serious injuries.

A ‘smashing noise’ alerted him that something was wrong on Wednesday at about midday.

A delivery driver somehow made contact with the car which was in a car park at the back of the building, according to Mr Cauldwell.

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He said: ‘It (the car) was knocked into the canal.

‘It is an item of stock. It is now in the canal with lots of people scratching their heads thinking ‘how are they going to get that out?’

‘I was with a mechanic dealing with a Ferrari and I heard a smashing noise, then I was looking around and it was the canal.

‘He managed to slide past a Mercedes that was there as well.

‘It could have been much worse, definitely.’

Mr Cauldwell said he was ‘very lucky’ to be dealing with such cars, and that AutoVero was the sole distributor for vintage speedster in the UK, but he hoped he would not be driven to despair with the pending insurance claim.

Mr Cauldwell, who is now preparing to have to deal with insurers, expects the car is now a ‘total loss’, adding: ‘I have never ever had a claim like this before and I doubt I will have one again.’