In 1999, I bought 10 domains of several large companies and trademarks, who at the time did not have any non .com domains. Think something like toyota.co.uk, but different country.
I sat on them for 2 years, then let them expire. Right now they are all owned by the rightful companies, but I don't know how that came about.
You wouldn't have been able to keep them and would probably/likely had to spend tons of money defending them. Only exception is nissan.com (not a car site!), but it is the exception that proves the rule.
In a way you dodged a major bullet.
Now, if you had bought some nice generic domain names (ie cars.co.uk) and let them expire that would be a different story...
I sat on them for 2 years, then let them expire. Right now they are all owned by the rightful companies, but I don't know how that came about.