DOZENS of motorists and pedestrians were quizzed by detectives hunting armed robbers behind a £230,000 designer watch heist.

One week after a gang of axe-wielding raiders smashed into Glasgow's Argyll Arcade, police returned to the scene where a suspected get-away car was dumped.

Uniform and plain-clothed officers stopped and interviewed motorists and pedestrians in Townhead yesterday afternoon in a bid to glean vital clues.

The four balaclava-clad men, armed with sledgehammers and axes, took just 54 seconds to smash open window display cases at Argyll Arcade and escape with the haul of top-of-the-range watches.

Stunned shoppers watched in terror as the armed thugs staged a brazen raid on jewellery shops off Buchanan Street last Wednesday lunchtime.

Today officers pulled over motorists and stopped pedestrians in the Castle Street area, near Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where the white Volkswagen Golf - believed to have been used by the thieves - was abandoned.

Police revealed the car had been stolen from outside a house in Haddington, East Lothian just hours before the raid.

After dumping the getaway car, it is thought the gang headed towards Edinburgh in a Vauxhall Combo van.

Detective Inspector Alasdair Barlow, said: "We now know that the men involved had access to a white Volkswagen Golf hatchback which they used to get away from the scene of the crime.

"Witness reports say that they drove at excessive speed from Queen Street, up Ingram Street and up to High Street, often driving on the wrong side of the road.

"However, we also know that they had access to a Vauxhall Combo van.

"It is known at this time that they abandoned the Volkswagen in Castle Street shortly after the robbery and then left in the Vauxhall van, which was last seen driving onto the M8 towards Edinburgh.

rebecca.gray@ eveningtimes.co.uk