Low life exists in abundance today. Respect for other people's things seems to be a lost factor. I am wishing a safe return from this horrific personal assault.
Don made our local news today.....I hope it's okay to post the news story. https://abc30.com/vintage-cars-stolen-hot-rods-highway-99-tulare/12227922/
So this happened in Central California see I understood Arizona that makes a big difference . There is an Early V8 Show and Swap in Orange County on the 1st of October I can't go but I suggest any going there can look out for any signs . We hope for their return
I hope their is video on the premises, almost seems like someone knew they were there. Praying for complete recovery.
Wow, it's only like what, 10 hours to Mexico and there are no closer cars in Southern California to steal? Maybe he should check with the RCMP. Or the Space Force. I hear those Martians can be shifty. Don, I hope you get your cars back.
Everyone can offer thoughts, etc on where they might be, but proper course of action it just keep an eye/ear out. Hopefully the thief(s) are dumb enough to move them on open transport.
I sure hope the cars are found and I know this isn't going to help the current situation but the info below might be of interest/helpful to someone. The wife and I just bought some Google Nest cameras for the inside of our house. The ones we bought simply plug into a regular wall outlet then work off our home wireless internet service. As soon as someone is viewed by one of the cameras, my wife's smart phone is instantly contacted (she has it on her all the time). At that point she can view what triggered the notification. If it is someone who isn't supposed to be there, the cops will be called (which means the thief's time on our property is short with the high possibility they will be caught). The wife was at work the other day and I needed to do some wiring so I shut off the main breaker ... she called within seconds wondering why she had been notified that the power was down at the house. When we are home, the cameras are turned off. When we go out, she activates them using her phone (there is no on/off switch on the camera, they are turned on/off remotely by a smart phone). If we head off to the cottage for a week, it is nice to know that thieves will only have minutes in our house not (potentially) hours or days. I don't work for Google, I am just a satisfied customer
4 cars out of a storage unit at one time pretty has to be the work of a pretty well organized group. Possibly stolen per order for somone who is increasing their profit margin in a less than stellar operation like that one in Oregon a few years ago. If I lived in that area I'd be listening for word of someone who all the sudden is making huge progress on a pretty well stalled project especially with the later model rigs. As far as trucks and trailers being stolen from parking lots, that may well depend on what parking lot you park in and what precautions you take. As far as personal hygene, just about every truck stop has showers for a few bucks so that is a moot point. Just like when we go to Bonneville and camp at the bend in the road. The truck stop is happy to take your money and hand you a clean towel and send you off to a shower.
I would suggest you leave the cameras on while you are at home. I know several people who have been stolen from while they were at home, and otherwise occupied. This sort of crap has been going on for a long time. I read in Harry Gant's biography where they got his truck, trailer and race car from a motel, way back in the 70's when he was still running LMS. The truck was recovered about 200 miles south, abandoned. The race car was never found.
Thank you for the suggestion. That happened several years ago in our area when a homeowner walked into his house (from the backyard) after a soak in the hot tub and encountered someone with a gun. We turn the cameras off when home as my wife is worried someone could hack into the internet feed and spy on us (I have no idea if that is even possible). That being said, we do have outside cameras (front and rear) that are recording 24/7, our front door is never ever left unlocked, garage is always closed and our backyard is locked/hard to enter. The difference in our cameras is, the outside ones do not contact the wife's phone (or her phone would be dinging every time a cat/bird/car/squirrel came into view), they record to a DVR unit whereas the Google Nest cameras will contact her phone when movement is detected inside the house when we know there shouldn't be any movement (we don't have pets). For those interested ... YES, we are getting the house ready for sale.
What a nightmare. I hate hearing news like this, it's infuriating. My brother's F-100 was stolen out of his driveway, his opinion was that the built 460 with the choppy idle garnered some unwanted attention. The thieves torched the frame in the middle and left the back half at a scruffy industrial yard in the area while the front half was never recovered. Is LoJack or a similar system in favor these days?
From Don @DRD57 Dillard's Instagram feed: NOTE: Don's HIGHWAY 99 HOT RODS shop and his storage garage are in the Central Valley of California (i.e., the Tulare area).
Here's the other semi-HAMB-Friendly cars that were stolen ... ... the '65 Impala: ... and the '34 Cabriolet:
I wonder if the police in the area could track the truck via traffic cameras? Be great if they were able to ID who that truck belongs to.
That truck looks lifted to me and those rims appear to be possibly aftermarket meaning it stands out more than a stocker. It would be nice if the local 6 o'clock news would replay the story with the images of the truck (which hopefully wasn't stolen).
Many tracker devices on the market. Rodder should be able to hide & keep operational any time he leaves the car
Anything driven through a CHP Checkpoint is on camera and that camera documents a file of trucks and a truckers Drivers Log better match or they get a surprise in the mail and it ain't Cracker Jacks !
The thieves tow rig is a white or silver 2016-2018 GMC 1500 crew cab, short box 4x4. I spent quite a bit of time researching the truck on google images. It's not a 2500 as that doesn't have the door lettering and has square shaped turn signals in the front bumper. It has black mirrors, a chrome bumper, chrome wheels with 33's or 35's. It has the huge 7" or 7.5" lift. 2016 GMC; https://www.nwmsrocks.com/for-sale/lifted-2016-gmc-sierra-1500-slt-z71-4x4_64282 If I were to profile the owner I'd say he's in his 20's-30's (us old guys can't get up in that truck) and likes to impress people. The super lift and chrome rims (and maybe huge sound system) tells me the truck is a "mall crawler" or a tow rig for towing his boat out to the lake or river, vs. a moderately lifted truck w black rims for a serious off roader. Ask any local river rats if they've seen the truck out at the river/lake. Just maybe someone will recognize it. He may work in the aftermarket industry, so that truck might be found outside a tire/wheel shop or a shop that caters to the 4x4 crowd, where they install lift kits etc. If he's not in the business, he most likely hired out the mods to a shop, so maybe someone remembers doing work to the truck (hopefully recently). Don stated the cars were stolen over a weekend, while the local news said over a 6 day period. Either way, the security time stamps may outline how many hours between runs which may tell us the max distance they could have hauled the cars. Maybe there's some local closed circuit footage. In looking at the map, there's a Love's and Flying J truck stops an exit away from the shop. Perhaps they topped off/dined there just prior to stealing one of the cars. If there's footage and a debit card swipe... FWIW, the 34 gets parted out, that grille is essentially a fingerprint when you consider how the various grille bars are bent out of shape.
WOW! You obviously put a lot of time, effort and thought into this. Thank you, and another bump back to the top.
Removable Bollards with shielded locks are in the works here. Have had my car trailer hooked up and taken. Then these tweekers unbolted the entire side seam of my metal building to get inside to crowbar the rollup door. That feeling of seeing your door 1/3 open is disabling. I hope you can recover them. Bring back the old ways of justice. That's the only thing that will solve this. I'm sorry.
A question, if you please? Is the video permanently recorded to your phone so it can be played back for the authorities or is there a time limit before it's permanently deleted? Reason I ask, I had a cam-corder that ran full time in my semi windshield to record erratic, dangerous driving or collisions by others with my tractor trailer around me. I had to manually save the video or it would be lost when the 30-minute loop would restart. Different equipment, I know, but the theory is the same.
Home systems record on a dvr/nvr and depending on the resolution it’s set at, reset after up to 7 days. I think(don’t know for sure) the recordings are in the DVR/NVR and if not saved to the disc witching the time frame, is erased and starts recording again. I didn’t dig into them deep enough when I was looking a few months back.
The Jalopy Journal
