£40,000 Ford Capri 'artwork' stolen

As a car, it was probably worth no more than £100.

But with its rooftop platform and fishing rods, the Ford Capri stolen from outside a studio in east London was no ordinary car.

In fact, it was an artwork by one of Britain's most celebrated young sculptors, Conrad Shawcross, and had been valued at £40,000.

Now Shawcross, whose works have been bought by Charles Saatchi, has offered a £500 reward for the return of the car, better known as The Soul Catcher.

One of his earliest works, the 1984 Capri has a metal platform on the roof with a seat and two fishing rods. A door bears the logo of an organisation called the Investigative Bureau Into The Location Of The Soul.

"I had just got it back on the road," said Shawcross, 29, son of journalist and biographer William Shawcross and writer Marina Warner.

"It just disappeared one night. It is a big mystery. It is the most conspicuous car you could possibly imagine.

"Whether it was joyriders or an art heist I don't know, but the most likely explanation is that it was taken by a gang with a tow truck to a scrapyard to be broken up. It would have been crushed almost immediately."

Shawcross, who makes most of his sculptures himself - unlike artists such as Damien Hirst - created the piece in 2000.

He said: "It was one of those things that was really close to my heart. To have your car stolen is upsetting enough, but to have this stolen is much more so. I was pretty devastated."

The Soul Catcher was valued at £40,000 by his dealers, the Victoria Miro Gallery, but Shawcross admitted: "As a car, you would be lucky to get £100 from the insurance."

Even so, the car was put to good use. "I would use it as my main mule for transporting sculptures around," said Shawcross, who lives with the actress Sophie Hunter. "It was very useful, that car. You could put anything on the roof."