Massive Fire at Classic Car Shop in MA

[Unobtanium-inc]

Very sad tale, among the burned was a 1970 911E with 48K original miles.

Full story on the blog:

http://unobtaniuminc.wordpress.com/

[911quest]

What a shame! I'm sure the chop shop had insurance...... not.

[Eminence Gris]

Interesting story. With an hour's head start, the shop was able to move 3 cars out of the path of the fire...? I must have missed something...

[John Straub]

Real bummer....

John

[NorthernThrux]

Interesting story. With an hour's head start, the shop was able to move 3 cars out of the path of the fire...? I must have missed something...

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. In the "before" pictures, most of the cars were on all wheels. Old cars are pretty light and should have been easy to get out of the way.

[dporsche74]

OMG i was down there a few weeks ago . SOOOO many awesome cars in that shop .
What a lost ... so many 356 and 911 and a gullwing and many wood rolls.
I hope Gary and his son can rebuild !!!! but those pictures are terrible/

[mrgreenjeans]

when a person hears of damaged Porsches that are totalled out , its hard to compare a water damaged Porsche to a fire damaged Porsche...... the utter depravity and total completeness of fire damage is beyond comprehension

I wish the victims well in the long haul, as their spirits have to be awfully deflated about now......so very sad

[Unobtanium-inc]

Couple of things.
1. Brandon was by himself, moving any car by yourself is tough. I know the 300SL was shoved in a corner, and probably blocked in by stuff. The Shelby was under a lift.
2. He probably didn't start moving everything at first, the fire was far away and I am sure he assumed once the fire department arrived it wouldn't engulf the whole building, of course everyone also assumed there were working hydrants.

I know from when our shop in Brooklyn almost burned I backed my truck up to the door in case the fire moved. The whole block next to ours burned, and the only thing between me and the burning block was a lumber yard, but luckily the winds kept the fire moving towards the East River and away from our building. My guess would be he didn't want to start moving cars out and have them get in the way of the fire trucks, and then when he realized they weren't going to get the fire out he jumped into gear. Remember there is no playbook for this kind of thing and he was on his own.

Here was what I looked at from our shop's front door.

http://unobtaniuminc.wordpress.com/?s=Brooklyn

[Cliff]

That is absolutely horrible.....what a mess

[mrgreenjeans]

makes a guy want to get up and puke