A racing car worth around £350,000 has been recovered after it was stolen from a London exhibition centre and its owners were targeted with a ransom demand, according to the team behind it.

Power Maxed Racing, the British Touring Car Championship outfit based in Studley, Warwickshire, said driver Dexter Patterson's BTCC Audi disappeared from a compound at the ExCeL London exhibition centre on Wednesday night. The team had brought the car to the venue for filming and promotional purposes.

Team principal Adam Weaver said the car had been loaded into a trailer that was locked overnight in ExCeL's secure car park, with extra precautions taken, including wheel-clamping the trailer and reversing it against another vehicle so it could not be opened. Despite this, he said three people managed to get into the site at around 02:30 GMT on Thursday, bringing in a vehicle to tow the trailer away with the car still inside.

Weaver told BBC Hereford & Worcester that he later received a FaceTime call from someone showing him footage of the car and demanding cash for its return. He said he told the caller he could not arrange the money that night and needed time, and the caller indicated he would call back in the morning. Before that happened, police contacted Weaver to say the car had been found close to ExCeL, following widespread media coverage and social media sharing of the theft.

"It was fantastic," Weaver said of the moment he learned the car had been recovered, recalling how he had been weighing up whether to try to gather the ransom money himself before police intervened.

A statement on Power Maxed Racing's Facebook page said the car would now be ready for the team's Black Friday event later this month, thanking everyone who shared news of the theft and helped make the car and trailer "too hot to be handled."

Criminologist Dr Anthony Gunter of The Open University suggested the thieves were likely after the trailer itself, which could be broken up and sold on the black market, rather than the car. He said they probably did not realise the vehicle was inside until later, adding that while the car was worth far more, it would be impossible to sell given how recognisable it is.

ExCeL London said it was aware of the theft and that its security team was working with relevant parties to investigate. The Metropolitan Police said it does not comment on individual vehicle theft cases. The team's previous headquarters near Evesham was destroyed by fire in 2025.

Source: BBC

Before this, we covered: Audi's Electric A4 Pushed Back to 2029 as VW Group's New Platform Stumbles Again