{"id":59540,"date":"2025-09-12T13:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/59540\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T13:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T13:00:08","slug":"mayfairs-supercar-crackdown-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/59540\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayfair\u2019s supercar crackdown \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mount Street in Mayfair is one of the most exclusive strips of real estate in London<\/a>. From Pragnell jewellers to Scott\u2019s restaurant and the Connaught hotel, it is where some of the wealthiest people in the city come to hang out.<\/p>\n

It is also where Westminster City Council\u2019s traffic wardens go big-game hunting.<\/p>\n

Each year from June to August, wealthy elites from Gulf states flock to London to escape the oppressive summer heat of their home countries, flying their high-end vehicles over with them, in what has become known locally as \u201csupercar season\u201d.<\/p>\n

Over the summer, fleets of Bugattis<\/a>, Porsches<\/a>, Ferraris<\/a> and Lamborghinis<\/a> \u2013 many with Middle East number plates \u2013 clog the streets of London\u2019s richest postcodes in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Belgravia, often revving their engines and accelerating at speed.<\/p>\n

\"AA Porsche parked outside Bvlgari and Van Cleef & Arpels on Bond Street in London. Photograph: Mike Kemp\/In Pictures via Getty Images <\/p>\n

As this year\u2019s supercar season draws to a close, Westminster council has just voted to extend a traffic crackdown on luxury car owners who break the rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is undermining public safety and businesses\u2019 security systems as well as damaging public roads,\u201d said a report prepared for the council, as it extended its car \u201cnuisance order\u201d known as a public space protection order (PSPO).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the council\u2019s traffic wardens have continued to patrol areas such as Mount Street to slap tickets on wealthy supercar owners, many of whom appear to prefer paying hefty fines for parking illegally instead of feeding a meter.<\/p>\n

This week, The Irish Times visited Mount Street to observe the last of the supercar season stragglers run the gauntlet of traffic enforcers. As London\u2019s grey sky spat heavy drizzle, a warden lurked beneath the canopy of Maison Goyard, a luxury handbag shop.<\/p>\n

He first approached a grey Porsche 911 GT3 RS, which was parked on double yellow lines opposite the five-star Connaught hotel.<\/p>\n

\"AA Kuwaiti-owned Porsche 911 GT3 RS parked on Mount Street, Mayfair, on Wednesday. Photograph: Mark Paul <\/p>\n

The car had temporary UK plates overlaying the originals, but an inscription on the plate holder suggested the sparkling car had been bought at Behbehani Motor Company in Kuwait. Its website listed the exact same model starting at 74,200 Kuwaiti dinar (\u20ac207,000), rising to more than \u20ac250,000 with extras. Its top speed is 296 kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n

The warden placed a notice for a \u00a3110 parking fine under the Porsche\u2019s wipers, before moving on up the street.<\/p>\n

About 50 metres further on, another Kuwaiti-registered supercar reversed into a space on the street outside Wetherell\u2019s estate agents. The Irish Times watched as its doors opened vertically and its driver stepped out. He was aged perhaps in his late 20s, dressed in casual clothing with a baseball cap on backwards.<\/p>\n

He locked the car and walked off; he did not appear to display a parking ticket. A photographer started taking snaps of the car. He said he was from Israel and had taken a trip to London to pursue his hobby as a luxury car spotter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, I\u2019ve got to send these pictures to my friends. They will be so f***ing jealous,\u201d he said. When asked what sort of car it was, he replied that it was a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ. \u201cIt must be worth $250,000 (\u20ac213,000),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"AA traffic warden prepares to place a parking ticket on a Lamborghini Aventador parked on Mount Street in Mayfair this week. Photograph: Mark Paul <\/p>\n

The car spotter was wrong. The same model was listed for sale on a Kuwaiti car site for the equivalent of more than \u20ac500,000. Only about 800 of this specific model were ever made by Lamborghini. Its top speed is 350 kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n

The council traffic warden walked up and photographed the car before placing a traffic fine beneath its wiper.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sort of guy who drives a car like this \u2013 he doesn\u2019t care about parking fines,\u201d said the Israeli car spotter.<\/p>\n

Directly beside the Lamborghini, the warden also ticketed a \u20ac200,000 dark green Mercedes AMG G63 V8 with Saudi plates. A woman had parked it minutes earlier before crossing Mount Street to enter the Christian Louboutin designer shop.<\/p>\n

Last month, London\u2019s Metropolitan Police<\/a> launched a separate supercar crackdown in conjunction with the Motor Insurers Bureau, targeting foreign-registered cars without the correct insurance.<\/p>\n

More than 70 cars worth in excess of \u00a36 million were seized, police said. This included two identical purple Lamborghinis \u2013 the driver of one of them had only been in Britain for two hours and had been driving for barely 15 minutes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis operation was set up to respond to resident, business and visitors\u2019 concerns about high-value vehicles causing a nuisance in known hotspot areas in central and west London,\u201d said the Met\u2019s special chief officer, James Deller.<\/p>\n

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The cars observed this week by The Irish Times and those seized last month by the Met were relative small fry compared to the most valuable cars listed this summer on London car spotter sites. Luxury car enthusiasts identified vehicles such as a Bugatti Chiron worth more than \u20ac2 million.<\/p>\n

For Westminster Council, meanwhile, it isn\u2019t the value of the luxury supercars that is the problem, but rather their volume and the antisocial behaviour of some of their drivers.<\/p>\n

It originally instituted a PSPO in 2021 to cover areas such as Belgravia and Knightsbridge, the home of Harrod\u2019s. It banned activities such as loud revving and heavy accelerating that triggered shop security alarms.<\/p>\n

In the last fortnight, the council voted to extend the PSPO to Soho and Mayfair, and out to 2028. During next year\u2019s London supercar season, those on Mount Street may have more than traffic wardens to worry about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mount Street in Mayfair is one of the most exclusive strips of real estate in London. From Pragnell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,42783,19,17,42784,130,36124,21095,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-59540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ferrari","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-lamborghini","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-metropolitan-police","16":"tag-porsche","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}