The car used in the horrific motorway crash which left five teenagers dead was bought for just €1,000 days before the tragedy, it has emerged.

The BMW, which gardaí initially thought had been stolen, was bought less than a week before last Sunday morning’s M9 crash, which also left four members of an innocent family seriously injured in hospital.

Gardaí have now ascertained that the high-powered 07-reg car, which was driven the wrong way down the motorway at 3 am, had not been re-registered since it changed hands. Officers were in the process last night of talking to the previous innocent owner of the vehicle.

There is no suggestion this person knew what the buyers had intended to do with the car or that it was being sold to an associate of the dead teens. It is understood the vehicle was bought on August 11, five days before it travelled the wrong way down the M9 in Co. Kildare and smashed into the Kinsella family, who were travelling to Dublin Airport for a wedding in England.

Because the car was not registered to any of the teenagers or their families, officers had first suspected it had been stolen. This had tallied with information they had received regarding several attempted car robberies in the Athy, Co. Kildare, area earlier that night.

However, officers are now of the opinion that the teenagers had ‘clubbed together’ to pay for the car so they could ‘rally it down motorways’, sources with knowledge of the practice told the Irish Daily Mail.

‘This is something which happens quite often around the country and it’s not some sort of new phenomenon,’ a source said. ‘Most of the guys like this haven’t got the type of money to pay for a car they’re just going to destroy.

‘So they’ll all go in on it together. The only thing that has changed is that they’re actually filming themselves driving dangerously,’ a senior source explained. ‘It’s all done by cash and most of the time the seller has no idea what is going to happen with the vehicle. They might have advertised it for a price and someone has come in and given them the cash and away they went. It’s often called a “company car”.

‘These young lads aren’t going to fill in a log book though and put themselves down as the new owners. They’re not concerned with that at all.’

The teenagers were named as Joey Carthy, 15, and Jack Kennedy, 17, both from Athy, Co. Kildare, Alex McCarthy, 17, and Jeremy O’Brien, 18, both from Carlow, and Kamil Pustkowski, 17, from Limerick. Four people in the second vehicle – including a seven-year-old boy – were seriously injured.

The innocent victims were all from the same family in Co. Carlow and were on their way to Dublin Airport. Sisters Alma and Niamh Kinsella, both in their 30s, were in the front of the car. Their sister, Ella Hendricken – who is in her 20s – was in the back with her nephew. All four were still being treated in hospitals last night. Two of the women remain critical while the child and another woman have been described as being in a serious condition.

The group of teenagers killed in the crash often posted videos of themselves being chased by gardaí. One video shared before their deaths filmed the rearview mirror of a car and was captioned with the words, ‘wrong way’.

The Mail has since confirmed the teenagers previously shared pictures of the tools they used to steal vehicles. The high-powered BMW they were driving on the night of the teenagers’ deaths was spotted in several areas near Kildare before the crash happened.

It is understood just one of the five teenagers was wearing a seatbelt when the crash happened. It is estimated they had been travelling as fast as 120kph before they applied the brakes as the innocent Kinsella family drove towards them. Forensic investigators examining the crash are able to estimate the speed the cars were travelling at by the tyre marks made on the tarmac before the collision.

All five of the dead teenagers were wearing masks when gardaí arrived at the grisly scene.

And just a day after the fatal crash, another car was spotted driving the wrong way down a motorway in Cork. Assistant general secretary of the Garda Representative Association Tara McManus said of that incident: ‘I saw a video of a car being driven the wrong way down the motorway in Cork, literally only 24 hours after five young men were killed.’

Friends of the teenagers have posted pictures of the young men wearing balaclavas and driving cars at dangerous speeds. One video posted in tribute to Pustkowski showed a man carrying out dangerous manoeuvres in a vehicle with the comment, ‘this one’s for you, Kamil’.

In another social media post, someone published a picture of a balaclava with the caption: ‘Your bally (sic) you gave me the other day. My heart’s in bits. Please, man. Don’t do this to us, Joe.’

A family friend said of one of the dead youths, Joe Carthy, 15: ‘Only a baby with his whole life ahead of him, most mannered little boy you were Joey. Too good for this big cruel world, watch over my James; he’s heartbroken over you. Your poor father and mother, Joey.

‘Please God give them this strength to get through this. Rest easy champ.’

A friend of Pustkowski added: ‘My heart is broken, you’re gonna be missed so much by everyone. Rest in paradise, God is going to give you the best bed up there.’

A cousin of Jeremy O’Brien said: ‘RIP to my cousin. [He] was like a brother. [May] God give you the bed in heaven, you’ll be missed.’

Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said this week that gardaí will be given ‘whatever resources’ are required, including pursuit training. He said the behaviour of those involved in these incidents is ‘unacceptable’.

‘It’s lethal. It’s reckless. It’s criminal. It’s dangerous. And the Garda Commissioner and myself are committed to ensuring that the gardaí have the resources to stop it,’ he said. ‘But the responsibility primarily rests on the people involved in that behaviour. They’ve got to stop it because we saw what happens to the people involved in that behaviour. You’ll end up in jail, or you’ll end up in a grave.’

Mr O’Callaghan said efforts are under way to prepare legislation to strengthen protections for gardaí involved in pursuits by the Department of Transport, and added that the Garda Commissioner had confirmed training would be introduced this year.