COLLECTOR CLASSICS
Collection rises from the ashes
Garry Cassidy remembers the early morning hours of last Oct. 25. It was 3:25 a.m. and he and his wife Darlene were asleep in their Palm Springs getaway home. Suddenly, the phone rang. It was the alarm company saying they were getting a fire signal from the Cassidy’s new 8,500 square-foot classic car showroom at their Langley home.
Darlene got on her iPad and the live cameras in the shop weren’t transmitting. “This isn’t good,” she told her husband.
They phoned a neighbour who walked outside to see flames shooting high in the sky from the large building filled with collector vehicles. From that point on, the Cassidy’s memories are blurred with dozens of phone calls from concerned Vancouverarea friends and their frantic attempts to find the fastest flight home.
They drove to Las Vegas and boarded a 1 p.m. flight to Vancouver. Their dream shop filled with hand-picked restored and modified collector vehicles, automotive-related art and National Hockey League memorabilia had been reduced to a smoking pile of rubble. The displays included hockey gear worn by Darlene’s father, Tony Leswick, the Detroit Red Wing player who scored the goal that won the 1954 Stanley Cup. The charred remains of the puck survived the fire.
The suspected cause of the fire was a loose connection in the electrical room that sparked the blaze in the wood-frame building.
Lost were some of North America’s best muscle cars, including a trio of high-horsepower Camaro muscle cars from the late ’60s purchased by the couple at Barrett-Jackson auctions.
Big block Chevrolet cars from 1959 through the early 1960s didn’t survive along with a number of Corvette Indy Pace Cars, a rare 1955 Pontiac Safari station wagon with a matching Strato Chief hardtop. Also destroyed was the only 1961 Chevrolet BelAir convertible built. All the rest were Impala models.
“They are like children. You don’t just go out and get replacements,” a sobbing Garry Cassidy said at the time of the fire loss. But, in the past year, the Cassidy’s have worked tirelessly to rise from the ashes. They brought in heavy equipment to remove the vehicles from the burnt-out buildings, salvaged some engines and other mechanical components and began the process of rebuilding.
Garry learned some valuable lessons from the $4-million fire that have led to improvements in the new building. It has a full sprinkler system, an automatic fire door dividing the two sections and the electrical room is a stand-alone building 35 metres away.
He is now fastidious about making sure all his cars are insured. The insurance had lapsed on his black 2013 Corvette ZR1 60th anniversary model while he was away and that was a $100,000 loss. But he praises Hagerty Insurance for paying out within 60 days for each of the other 36 cars lost.
“I can’t say enough for the way they handled things,” he says of the specialty insurer. “They were amazing to deal with.”
The Cassidy’s were back in the bidder’s box at U.S. auctions beginning in January with plans to fill their new showroom that was being built. The first purchase at Meacum Auction in Las Vegas was a 1956 Chevrolet Nomad restomod that has been highly modified, including a custom frame, Corvette running gear and suspension and digital gauges.
Among the 19 vehicles purchased so far is the Corvette that was the pace car for the 2005 Daytona 500 race. Beside it sits a 2003 Corvette Indy Pace car with just 400 miles on the odometer. It’s in the very spot where a similar pace car with only 300 miles on it was destroyed by the fire.
A blue-on-blue 1962 Chevrolet BelAir with a 409 cubic inch engine pushing out 409 horsepower through a four-speed transmission sits on the same spot where a similar red car was destroyed by the fire. The Cassidy’s have also bought a 1961 Chevrolet Biscayne with the same high horsepower combination. A light blue 1957 Chevrolet BelAir restomod replaces a similar car lost in the fire.
A favourite auction purchase is a copper-coloured 1953 Pontiac wood-trimmed station wagon having the old look with completely modern mechanical components.
“I bought it at the Barrett-Jackson auction and later learned it was originally owned by the family of a friend of mine,” Garry says.
He points at a charred 76 gasoline sign mounted high on the wall of his new shop. “That’s the only thing that survived,” he says.
Two cars did survive the fire: a 2011 Camaro convertible that was parked in his home garage and a 1932 Ford hot rod that was with him in Palm Springs when the fire broke out.
When asked if he will fill his shop with as many collector cars that were lost, Garry replies: “I don’t think so. I’m probably going to get fussy with my buying from now on.”