Blown away at Russo and Steele in Scottsdale

Yep, feel bad for the owners. Here's a link w/a lot of pics.

https://sites.google.com/a/allclassicsllc.com/www/home/2010-russo-and-steele-damages

 

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:/Users/George/AppData/Local/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <woNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> 56Don I think nowaxn5 gave you some pretty good advice. Let me share a few thoughts with you. First what makes you think you are in a superior position to judge the danger of any given situation over the guys who are guarding the place or evacuating some place that appears dangerous. Most catastrophic events require the police to try and prevent overly egotistal folks that believe they have super powers from hurting themselves. Unless you show up in your tights and wearing a shirt with a big red S they can&#8217;t tell you from the dufuses you expect them to protect while your doing your important work., So be a good citizen and do what the nice police man tells you because otherwise you&#8217;er just in the way. And I want to tell you one more thing about your opinion of yourself. I don&#8217;t know who you are or where you&#8217;ve been so maybe you can just blow this off. I did two tours in Viet Nam. One was in an Airborne rifle company (173d Bde). I came as a surprise to me to find out that you just can&#8217;t tell how guys are gonna&#8217; react when it gets right down to the real nut cutting. You might just bite off more than you can chew. Sorry but I believe you need to rethink your position.

 

Talk about lucky. Only the exterior of the Facel got wet under the car cover. I was extremely fortunate. Others were not so lucky but the damage was surprisingly minimal considering the number of cars there . About a dozen or so cars were damaged severely but really not that bad. The main support poles were attached to large spikes placed next to them . Both were then tied together with nylon rope . This prevented the the poles from kicking out and as luck would have it caused many of the poles to fall in between the cars . In the east section of the north tent something happened and several poles feel at an angle striking several cars per pole. I dont know how I came up with my estimate. Must of moved a decimal point or two. They are saying auto damage to be about $1.5M and there was only one minor injury. Spent today****essing things and hearing old Salt stories from Lou Bigham. Sadly his old coupe didnt fare well. One of the large lighting fixtures fell squarely on the hood bounced off the headlights, while something hooked the back bar and ripped it off the car. A new run list should be on line within the next hour or so . The auction will run Sunday and Monday. I'm staying in . The staff at Russo should be commended for their response to the tragedy. I understand that this opinion may not be shared by all especially if your car was damaged but they were truly professional in making sure they treated all with respect and compassion. All the rumors over what happened should be treated as rumor until a proper investigation is concluded and the reports written . There were video surveillance cameras all over so there should be a record of the events. Dont believe everything written in the papers. A quote in one of the local papers said B&J moved trailers to prevent tents for blowing over insinuating that there was no action taken on the part of R&S to secure the tents before they collapsed is plain wrong. They were actively securing things when something just blew one and then the other down.

The "Milk Truck got wet inside and has some minor damage outside, Maybelline sustained some damage but I'm unsure of exactly what extent.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it .

 

Glad you came out good on this Larry.

 

Well I think this will show who the real car insurance people are. The fly by night will run and the real people will stand up and do what is right.

 

Wishing Larry best possible results with the Facel auction tomorrow. A lot of bidders going to be there out of curiosity and simply because the other auctions are over and they didn't find good cars. If they want a Facel, his is as good as it gets.

Yes, some cars got damaged in all this but no where near as big a deal as it could have been considering two tents each 1000' long went down with all their support paraphenalia. The potential here was far worse than the result.

Considering the number of people on the property at the time, the fact the auction tent itself stayed up and that only ONE person had a MINOR injury has to be viewed as some sort of miracle and those who are in the HAMB Chapel can be thanking God for that miracle and the rest of the members can give it some considerable thought as well. I think that's a paraphrase of what we say in polite society about our "thoughts and prayers", isn't it?

 

Pics from Russo & Steel from Tues .

http://www.hotrodhotline.com/feature/2010show/010russoandsteeleal/

 

Larry,FYI the ugly Facel at B-J sold for about $72k I believe.

 

Because often times it's not. Auto policies are very different than home policies. Many insurance cos. make you buy that coverage back. I would think a quality policy like Grundy or any of the other collector car insurers would have this covered automatically. Everyone needs to read their policy. That being said, this was not an act of God because man intervened. That is, the damage was the result of the tent collapsing in most cases. I would guess even those with just water damage are the indirect result of the tent collapsing. So this is not an act of God.

 

i looked at some of the pics.and had to stop because it was making me sick.im glad that no one was really hurt.i dont understand how they could still go on with the auction.to me its like having a gettogether party at a funeral.i hope everyones cars are covered buy some kind of insurance{either theres or R&S.}the one thing that im wondering is what if the car was a surviver?how do you put a price on an origanal paint job.i have seen cars go for WAY more money just because they are factory paint!!!

 

Going on with the sale is the ONLY option. You've got guys that have hauled their cars halfway across country to be there, some of whose cars are undamaged and their owners, like Larry, want to sell.

And - let's be honest - this is going to cost R&S a bundle in lost revenues. Might as well get as much as they can get; they're already there.

 

It's called a wake and happens all the time.

 

that really*****s....

 

Thanks for posting this link it sure brings reality home! so many cars destroyed
glad there were no serious injuries

 

Wonder what the ins co is going to say about them not getting to see the damage before it was all cleaned up. In my dealings with them they always want to see it before it was cleaned up. (not a car accident)

 

I couldn't even imagine having a car on those grounds,my in laws lived in the Phoenix area for about 7 yrs in the late 70's early 80's and I remember them having these kind of rains, at least once, I seem to remember bridges getting washed out doesn't happen often but when it does!!

 

Hard to watch that slide show of pictures, I can't imagine what the car owners were feeling watching that tent flop in the wind knowing their cars were in there.

 

Even with good insurance some of the damaged cars are irreplaceable, they are only original once. Very sad.....

 

devastating, so, they have this auction at the same time as BJ? after seeing the footage and slide show, I feel like i just left a funeral.

 

It's just devasting, seeing the cars that are damanged, knowing that they were in mint condition, just a few days before. It must be heart wrenching seeing your car for the first time after the rain storm, and seeing that type of destruction around you.

 

In some states.
You can apply for coverage of diminished value.
Normally that is the difference in how much a car is worth for trade in if it never had been repaired due to collision, as opposed to its value after a collision.
If for instance a 2008 silverado was involved in an accident and repaired, a dealer can use car-fax or other means to determine the car was involved in an accident. This could cause a car to be worth several thousand dollars less in trade in value as opposed to a vehicle that was pampered and never damaged.

Now, what of a collector car? An undamaged original car, is now several thousand, maybe even in the tens of thousands less in value now that it has been "restored".

Imagine a Shelby Mustang, low miles, original. Now with a crushed roof, and windows blown out. What about date coded glass? What about having another roof panel installed? Is this now diminished in Value?.................you better beleive it!
Is the owner entitled to be compensated for his loss in this matter?
Imagine the shelby had the potential to be sold for a quarter of a million. And after all repairs only sells for a hundred grand? the owner is now out a hundred and fifty grand due to this incident.

Look at some of those cars out in that footage.
Whats the cost of a replacement NOS front fender for a Superbird?
think the insurance companies are going to balk at that?
can an NOS fender be found?
Or is the car now a total?
If it has an aftermarket fender and otherr parts installed, does that diminish the sale value of this vehicle?

To gauge the true state of this hobby..............stay tuned!

I know I am!

 

Has anyone heard the status opf the Tucker convertible?
Was it damaged?

 

Tucker never made a convertible

 

I don't think he said they did. There is/was a convertible in the auction with the Tucker name tag on it. It's been very debated as to if it's authentic or not, but never-the-less, there is a Tucker convertible in Russo's listing. Stu

 

you are correct, I was just having some fun. I know the car well, after all, its last two owners are both from Southern WI.

On that same vein, it really turned out well. Props to Benchmark Classics for pulling it off. Many, me included, didn't think they would.

Now back to the subject at hand...

 

Never seen anything like it, that slideshow shows alot of pretty extensive destruction. I find it funny that some are saying that things are not that bad. Maybe you need to look again.

Or have your head examined...

 

well thats not all the cars damaged I know of others not in that slide show

 

As much press as this has gotten, any "collector car" insurance company that tried to weasel out of paying on one of these claims would be publicly roasted on forums all over the Internet. They would loose far more than the cost of the claim if they tried to hold out on the policy holder in this situation.

If this was going to happen, it couldn't have happened at a better time/place - when every collector car insurance company in existence was on site telling thousands of people how good they are & how they understand true "car guys".

In this situation all they can do is grit their teeth & write the checks.

I feel for those who have damaged cars still though. What a mess.

JH

 

I guess this means that our collector car ins. rates will be higher next year.

 

NO.they shouldnt be affected,this will be absorbed by thier underwriters and things will be fine look at it as the glass 1/2 full and be glad we have such coverage