How does the glass car lift in Cowcaddens work? Macklin Motors Nissan car tower off the M8 explained

If you’ve driven on the M8 in the north part of Glasgow any time in the last six years - you’ve no doubt seen the glass tower full of cars outside the Macklin Motors Nissan Showroom.

Located on Port Dundas Road just off the M8 slip road in Cowcaddens near Glasgow Caledonian University - you’ve probably wondered just how this car contraption works. Given it’s prominent location in the city centre, the height of the structure, and the oddity of seeing a Nissan parked 20ft up - who could blame you?

The tower, alongside the rest of the dealership, was revealed to the public on November 1 2016 - and ever since Glaswegians have been wondering what the script is with that glass lift full of cars.

The glass structure, alongside the rest of the dealership, cost a total of £6 million and was described as ‘state-of-the-art’ technology in 2016. It’s eight storeys high, has a car capacity of 30 - and takes just four seconds to retrieve a car from the top of the tower.

A video published on Youtube in 2017 by RecognitionPR shows how the Macklin Motors glass tower actually functions.

Workers at the dealership need only to pick the registration of a car - each car sits on a pallet, parked parallel to the road so passers-by can see the vehicles - and it’s retrieved from the tower automatically using a series of lifts. Cars are lifted by a machine that lowers the pallet the car is sitting on down the central vestibule to ground-level, where it is ready to be driven outside or into the showroom.

Robert Auld, general manager of Macklin Motors in 2017, said:”The tower works like a giant vending machine - we request the car, and the tower brings it to us.”

You can see the tower in action through this video here.