Sad pics (NOT for the faint hearted)

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j-miller

j-miller

Demonized by Dodge
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A friend of mine was up from Kentucky this weekend and he happen to tell me about a restoration shop that was in a old Dodge dealership in Hardinsburg,KY.(I think they restored only Mopars there). Well he told me it burned completely down with a good amount of Mopars with it. The steel girders and beams melted and twisted and fell on the cars. Well I had my friend email me pics of it. Now I don't know how long ago this fire was,so it could be old news. I seen one car was a Superbird.

John
 
j-miller said:
A friend of mine was up from Kentucky this weekend and he happen to tell me about a restoration shop that was in a old Dodge dealership in Hardinsburg,KY.(I think they restored only Mopars there). Well he told me it burned completely down with a good amount of Mopars with it. The steel girders and beams melted and twisted and fell on the cars. Well I had my friend email me pics of it. Now I don't know how long ago this fire was,so it could be old news. I seen one car was a Superbird.

John
Click to expand...
well that just sucks. rest in peace:pale:
 
There was a post about that on Dodgecharger .com a wile back. IIRC the shop owner was un insured too. I will see if I can find the story and link it.
 
Yea,that's what my friend told me. The shop owner had no insurance.
 
That Sucks Big Time! What a sad situation for the car owners.
 
I seem to remember the superbird for sale a few years ago. the guy had all sorts of new parts at home for the car.
How can somebody run a bussiness like that with no insurance?
very sad
 
Its hard to imagine that those cars survived 40 years of thrashing, neglect and abuse only to be taken out like that. Every day there's less. Oh well, they could sell them all to Obama for 4500 each.
 
You know if I am not mistaken there was a post on here about that fromam member out of KY. He had a few pictures as well of a 340 duster that they did manage to save. I also beleave that there was a superbird in the building. I also read that they had thought it was arson and that the business owner had no insurance nor the building owner. Very sad to see indeed.
Matt
 
That shop is only maybe thirty minutes from me, but I almost never go up around there. Even without reading the article, I know that fire was fairly recent, because I remember one of my coworkers telling me about a superbird in a shop up there. Some goof probably tried to pull an insurance job, only to find out there was none.
 
28 Mopar were lost, it was arson, the owner had no insurance on his cars cause he was not driving them. Some of the cars:

63 Dodge Max Wedge 3,700 original miles
67 Cuda 273 4-speed
68 GTX 440 AUTO
69 ROAD RUNNER 383 SURVIVOR (SHOP OWNER BOUGHT IT NEW)
69 GTX CONV 4-SPEED
69 GTX CONV 4-SPEED
69 CHARGER R/T TRIPLE BLACK SUNROOF
70 RR 440+6 4-SPEED
70 RR CONV 4-SPEED PLUM CRAZY
70 RR 383
70 GTX 440 4-SPEED
70 DUSTER
70 CHALLENGER CONV
70 SUPERBIRD 440 AUTO
70 BEE 440+6 4-SPEED
70 RR 440+6 AUTO
70 RR 383 AUTO
70 RR 383 4-SPEED
70 RR 383 AUTO
70 CHARGER 383
79 LITTLE RED EXPRESS
69 GTO GUDGE 400 4-SPEED

They said the fire was so hot the aluminum transmissions melted out from underneath the cars. Mopar Collectors Guide has an article, VERY VERY sad read with pictures.
 
lets think positive, that means our mopars will be going up in value!! they will be rare so even more value!! horrible tragity but im trying to think positive
 
Yeah, that's right, it's not a hobby, it's just a place for people with a few $$ to squirrel it away until the economy comes back.
You tell us, now.

Whatever happened to it just being because you actually love and enjoy the cars and the hobby?

Don't get me wrong, I try to make money doing what I like with old Mopars, but for crap's sake, buying them up for investments, just to let them sit in a barn or building until some disaster hits is pretty damned stupid.

For the value of ONE of the cars mentioned, this place could have been insured, his compulsion to keep so many would have at least paid him back some of what he lost.

If you look at the car for what it's financially worth, not the fun you can have with it, do you really enjoy it?

Mark.
 
The orange spray paint on the 70 Super Bird leads one to believe that at least one or some of the cars were insured. Were they all owned by the shop owner?
 
i was just saying, most people aren't in it just for the money. but for the people who are... when i get my car, im not selling it, unless i absolutly have to
 
There's NO upside to a deal like this, but if there were one, it would be that from the list (and, I don't know how complete/incomplete it was) it appears that there were only TWO A-Bodies in the fire!!!

People, in general, don't think A-Bodies are collectible, and since making money is a part of the rationale for doing this for so many people, they don't pay restoration shops big bucks to make a street find into a 100-point restored car unless it's a B-Body or E-Body, usually.

I'm GLAD there (apparently) weren't but a couple of A-Bodies in there. Some kind of karma going on there??? LOL!
 
I live only about 20 miles from the shop. The building was originally a Ford Dealership (how ironic, lol). About half of the cars belonged to the owner of the business. His name is Mike French. There was no insurance on anything. The business was called Thunder Road Soda Blasting. He done soda blasting and restoration of Mopars. He has always messed with Mopars as well as the rest of his family. The French family is known around here as being the authority as Mopar "kings". It is a sad event. Glad mine wasn't in it. Supposedly some guy from California owned most of the cars. I heard he had taken his retirement and invested it into these autos and he didn't have any insurance either. It was ruled an arson, but nothing else has been said about it. Hopefully we'll find out who done this terrible act. I'll keep everyone posted as I hear.
 
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