Police are probing a late night arson attack which destroyed a luxury car in an posh housing development.
It is the latest series of mystery firebombings in the Lanarkshire town of Bothwell and nearby areas in the last three years.
The BMW convertible which was parked in a driveway was left engulfed in flames after it was set on fire shortly before Friday midnight.
Horrified residents in Pailis Crescent called the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service after the blaze broke out.
Emergency crews managed to put out the inferno before it could spread to the house and neighbouring properties.
No one was in the £425,000 villa at the time of the fire or when the Sunday Mail called.
Neighbours said that the owners of the property lived abroad and the occupant, believed to be a middle aged woman, had moved in about six months ago.
One neighbour who asked not to be named said he was woken by the sound of a bang shortly before midnight as he was about to go to bed.
He added: “When I looked out I could see a fireball engulfing the car, with thick smoke billowing out above.”
Police Scotland say they are treating the attack as deliberate.
The exact cause of the blaze is unknown at this time.
A spokesperson said: “We received a report of a car on fire on Pailis Crescent, Bothwell, around 11.55pm on Friday, June 3.
“The fire is currently being treated as wilful and enquiries are ongoing.”
Last May a Range Rover and Mercedes were torched outside the home of businessman James Mortimer in Bothwell.
The attack happened after neighbour Stephen McCann had his £260,000 Rolls-Royce destroyed in an earlier blaze.
That same month a luxury garden bar at the Bothwell home of Alan Macrae, 54, was set on fire.
Another victim in May last year was former ex-Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell whose home in Thorntonhall, Lanarkshire, 11 miles away, was targeted days earlier.
Three cars on the 62-year-old’s drive were set alight and the flames spread to the property after one of the vehicles exploded.
Lawwell and his family fled the blaze, which was put out by fire crews.
His daughter and baby granddaughter had a narrow escape as they were asleep in living quarters above a garage that was gutted.
In 2019, Bothwell restaurant Vincenzo was firebombed.
There was a second mystery fire there in March this year.
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