Actually yes, probably more like that one. I do remember they used flashbacks to the time in it (though it must be ten years since I've seen it as that Morse isn't repeated very often). Very few cars though (I recall only an Opel Vectra used at the end of the episode in a scene from Ireland)

I have a similar question: Around 1999 or 2000 I saw a detective episode on a Saturday night on BBC1. It was not quite product placement (as this was not allowed in the UK at the time) but there was fairly obvious use of a Lexus GS in it. I remember the owner of the Lexus met this child who was impressed with the car ('It's a Lexus, son' that kind of thing). Anyway, eventually this Lexus driver is killed in what seems to be suicide but his friend (the detective and it was a regular series with this guy) investigates and proves it was a murder.

There was some kind of emphasis upon cosmic ordering in the plot (he tells the young boy he can have a Lexus when he is older if he wishes hard enough for it) but I can't remember much more than that. It is strange that after nearly 15 years so much of the plot is familiar, the car used is familiar (it was the bug-eyed version of the GS and, I think, red) but I can't remember what series it was from. I thought it was Dalziel and Pascoe or Jonathan Creek but I'm pretty sure I've watched every episode of those series it could have been.