History Rod Palmer's Arizona Street Rods on fire

WARNING!


This is hearsay and not confirmed, just rumor passed along to me.

The word is the fire was caused by a battery and charger that were left on after they shut down for the day.

Also, Rod bought out the lease of the differential shop next door and is moving what cars they can next door to start salvaging what they can.

Best of luck to them if this is true.

 

I worked in a shop where the rule was "no welding of any kind within the last 30 minutes of the day". I thought that was pretty damn smart.
I understand thats not what happened here, but still.

 

Best news to come out of all this is Nobody was seriously hurt .Rod and all the staff have always been just genuinely great people to work with through out the years , And shall continue to be .

Yes it sucks to loose the material things .Keep your heads and spirits up folks .Like the cities name sake Arizona Street rods shall rise again .

Best wishes to you All .

 

This just makes me sick. To see a top shelf shop that pressed on in the down economy be totally gutted by a fire...

Sickening...

 

I have knowen Rod Palmer for a long time, He always helped the hot rodders.
In the 90's I was with the Phoenix Az Soap Box Derby and he help build two derby cars for a derby class we had for handycap kids
he even came to the races and help
So as you can tell he is first rate in my book and I'm so sorry for the fire


What a shame
Bobby Royal

 

Best of luck to them if this is true.

Steve, at this time the investigators seem to think it probably started in the parts room area. There were no battery chargers on.

I have heard so many stories it's crazy. They are still investigating as of today. And it is true that they will be moving into the old B&R building right next door.

 

This is so very sad - I'm happy no one was hurt but the pain of your loss is felt by all of us I'm sure. Our thoughts are with all of you ....

 

holy shit! this makes a guy paranoid. good luck fellas. i wish ya the best.

 

Hence the warning, Jerry over at Performance Suspension told me that one.

Everyone is hungry for information.

 

Fires are strange things. When I read there was a Corvette in there, I would have thought it would be unrecognizable, but there it is and in the overhead shots it looks like the front left of the car isn't burned, at least that looks like gold paint to me. Yet everything else all around is burned right out. Which is a shame.

No sprinkler system in there?

 

Tragic. Is there a possibility any of the cars could be salvaged from such a devistation??

 

any more news on cause?

 

I can barely look at those pictures. I brings back memories of how the storage building I was renting looked after it was torched by the owner to collect the insurance. Thankfully I had all of my current projects at my shop but a '32 2dr., a real '69 Z-28 and over $50,000 dollars worth of tools and parts were history. It takes many,many years to recover (financially and emotionally) and you never do completely.

Frank

 

Sorry to hear about this loss Rod. Ive never met you but know exactly what your going through. You may remember my shop Jason Graham Hot Rods burned back in Febuary. Lost 9 cars and everything I had ever worked for. I have built back my shop and am back at work, but will never fully recover.

 

Again, I'm sorry for this tremendous loss, and I know this is kind of a sullen thread/topic, but I was just quickly scrolling through it and these pix kinda startled me. Does anybody else see the form of a person in these? Way out of proportion to the building, and takes up the whole center room area, but at quick glance it almost scared the crap out of me.

I really am glad its just an illusion...


JOE

 

Now that you mention it, yea I see it, it is kind of freaky...

 

This looks like HAMBer Kirk Hanning's old truck . . .





http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=447185

 

Oh shit it is, Bull.

 

The truck was just way too recognizable for me after seeing it . . . and drooling over it . . . at the Hunnert a time or two.

 

oh the humanity! Yeah, it's "just" a machine. OUCH

 

I believe hamb er Hillbilly Hepcat was the unfortunate new owner of the '34

 

That is devastating news. It is never good to hear anything of this sort happening. I couldn't even conceive how the owner of the shop, and the owners of the vehicles are feeling. I am just glad that no one got hurt.

 

Holy Shit! It was the truck that I had built.

 

Kirk had a ton of hours in that. Hell, I had a feww, too! Sad to see it in this shape. That makes two cars I've had my hands in destroyed this month. Am I cursed?

But, on the other hand, loook how well the bodywork held up!!

 

and it now sucks even more that this happened..that truck was cool.

wonder if those or some of those bodies could be saved?

 

I was down at the shop today and was talking with rod and he said that they will be in the new shop in about two weeks. I thought is was great that he would take time out of his hectic day to talk to me about my project....Rod

 

ohhhh man thats sad. one of my worst fears... that vert caddy has to be savable!!! at least the important part

 

I had the same response as Kirk when I saw the news coverage of the fire. I knew this is what it would look like once the blaze was extinguished. After Kirk shipped the truck out to me, I took it over to Rod's to get a few repairs made and to put a few personal touches on it...replacing the front discs with drums, etc. Unfortunately, I never even had the chance to run it through the gears on the street. I have taken several cars to Rod over the years and could always count on them to help me do what I didn't have the knowledge or patience to do on my own. I know that he will be up and running again soon, just like this never happened. Sorry Kirk had to see his hard work destroyed! I am going to build another one from scratch, borrowing a lot of Kirk's unique ideas from this truck including the 1957 Caddy 365 that was at the machine shop and not in the fire! Look for it soon right here on the HAMB.

 

Any updates on the cause of the fire?

 

You have our thoughts man. I hate to hear about all this.

I just hope to get my Dad's '31 looking a tenth of how good Kirk's truck looked. Wow that's bad/sad.