Prefacing this by saying, if you wanna bend things a bit for the sake of the narrative, that's fine, not gonna argue with that, what I'm about to say is just for the sake of clarity.
I'm confused by what you mean by your first paragraph (not the drama part), since you've basically said, you're right it wouldn't have been impounded but it would have been impounded. Private citizens can't just tow and scrap other people's vehicles, even abandoned or illegally parked ones, if the government tows it, that's impoundment, which requires conditions for a vehicle to be considered abandoned and thus eligible for impoundment, which I don't think are met here.
I think there are cases where private companies can impound vehicles, but generally those are either government contractors, who are bound to the same restrictions as governments, or done to repossess vehicles after the owner fails to make payments.