OT Shadetree Mechanic 54 Ch*vy 3100 Pickup

[Howard Tarnoff]

I need some help...looking for a missing truck.

For those of you who have been around for awhile you will remember back before Two Guys Garage and before Crank and Chrome my buddy Sam Memmolo and his former sidekick Dave Bowman did a long tenured show on TNN (now a really bad network SPIKE) called Shadetree Mechanic.

Sam built a Ch*vy Pickup Truck, yellow to the gills, called Tweety. Well the truck was mine.

Fast forward several years and I Sold? the truck at the Barrett Jackson Auction. I could go on and on about how to get royally screwed but I will save that for another thread. Let me only say that I sill see my hand prints in my ankles after many years.

So the plea for help is this. Once the hammer fell and I parked the truck in the tent it vanished, never to be seen again by anyone that I know of. Sam and I are great friends and he knows a ton of people and nobody that he knows has ever seen Tweety since the auction. My other good buddy owns Total Performance, the T-Bucket guys, and Mickey has never heard of the truck being seen out either.

Many people think that Barrett Jackson had a shill in the crowd that stole it (again, more on another day) and that it is in their warehouse in Scottsdale.

Just wondering if anyone has ever seen the truck?

Thanks,

Howard

[Howard Tarnoff]

Norm,

I have 100's of photos of the truck. PM me with your email address and I will send away.

[JerseyHarold]

FWIW, if you have enough people willing to sign a deposition that they believe the truck is in a particular warehouse, that should be enough for a judge to issue a search warrant to find out for sure.

I recall that a number of years ago a suitcase containing a huge amount of cash (the proceeds of a large, well-known collector car auction....might have been a Kruse sale) 'vanished' from the waiting room of an airport.

Sure does put a blemish on the integrity of high-profile auctioneers.....

[Allan Faust]

Howard,

Well I for one, even though it is off topic, and a chebby to boot... want to hear the whole story, right here... and see pictures.... again, right here.....

You've piqued my interest... especially on how your handprints got around your ankles!!!

Allan

[Plymouthy Adams]

if you had it for auction and gavel fell..did you get your money and if not I can see the cause for alarm..if however you got your money, and it sold for less than anticiapted then my friend that's the pitfalls of auction unless you placed a reserve then what it brought was how it was bought...if BJ had an insider..and it was sold to him and no other person in the general public outbid or run him up..though it may seem a tad out of order..it is still legit though it may be considered a bit tainted.

[Don Jordan]

I'm confused - I've been trying to follow this - my question is who has the registration? If you have the vin number you should be able to trace its location.

I think I missed something.

[BobT-47P15]

Yeah.....inquiring gearheads want to know.

Was the truck done up as stock, or a rod, or????

Why not post some pics here.

[PatS....]

Barret-Jackson makes millions and has access to the most uniqe, rarest and nicest vehicles on the planet.

It makes no sense to risk it all for a project truck from a defunct tv show that only car guys would remember.

Not saying something fishy didn't happen but I can't see B-J being involved OR having a secret warehouse.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to keep a secret like a warehouse full of auction shill buys these days...impossible.

[eric wissing]

Isn't a shill used to jack up the price? My brother bought a caddy years ago, was always going to fix it up but finally was persuaded by his wife to get rid of it. He knew a guy who worked for an auction business. The friend asked him how much he wanted and said he would get that for him. He said "the man in the rafters" would bid it up. It worked. Not honest but the other bidders can stop anytime.

There was a seller at BJ a year or so ago that sued them saying they shut the bidding off too early. Howard is this what happened to you? They could do this for friends. It happens at local auctions, and quite often the item ends up in the auctioneer's hands. It is one crazy business. Eric

[Howard Tarnoff]

sending pictures to norm. i have problems posting them here. the truck was not a hack job. earl garte racing block, inglese intake, etc. the frame with smooth as glass. Norm, feel free to post the pictures i send you tonight.

[Howard Tarnoff]

if you had it for auction and gavel fell..did you get your money and if not I can see the cause for alarm..if however you got your money, and it sold for less than anticiapted then my friend that's the pitfalls of auction unless you placed a reserve then what it brought was how it was bought...if BJ had an insider..and it was sold to him and no other person in the general public outbid or run him up..though it may seem a tad out of order..it is still legit though it may be considered a bit tainted.

It is not possible to sell with a reserve at BJ, they wont take the consignment. There are two avenues of protection; Have a bidders number yourself (I did) and or have a buddy bid and buy the vehicle if it does not reach your number. In either case you wind up paying, at that time, 8% buyers premium and 8% seller premium.

What happened to me is that I was driving the truck over the block and was not allowed out of the vehicle to place my bid. We were prepaired to pay the 16% premium to prevent the truck from going away too cheap but could not. They did not listen to my protest so I was toast.

Recently a Federal Judge sold a vehicle with BJ and claimed it was short gaveled. That means BJ ended the auction too quickly for the sellers liking and the seller did not get his number. They screwed around with the wrong guy and he took them to court on multiple charges and won a million dollar plus settlement. I am not a judge.

Sorry to burst some bubbles but in fact BJ does have a well documented warehouse just outside Phoenix. Nobody outside of a small group of long time employees ever gets inside. Not even the drivers from Intercity Lines that load and unload. Highly secured.

I just put out the post to see if anyone had seen the truck around. No big deal, I am over it.

I wont go into the hand print issue, not fit for prime time.

[Plymouthy Adams]

thanks for the info..was not aware of no reserve auction...looks like a good place come out short ended...that sounds very high risk....I have never watched a BJ acution and to be honest...don't think I ever will..

[Allan Faust]

That is one nice truck.... you can be sure that if I'd seen it, you'd know... but I know I haven't. What year is it?

Allan

[eric wissing]

I think auctioneering is an on the edge business. Even the largest, most respectible auction houses get themselves in troubles by shorting the buyer or the seller or both!!. It is a tough business because people get emotional on both ends. The houses also will quickly authenticate material that is very iffy.

We used to go to a neat little street auction in a very small Nebraska town. You could put anything you wanted on the curb, get a number and have the auctioneer sell it. I would take stuff that I didn't care what I got as long as it was gone. I came out pretty good. A few sellers would bid most of their own stuff up because they didn't want to se it go cheap. Heck they paid 10% to keep on owning it. They also lost the cash they could have gotten from selling it. I met a lot od dealers who had booths in Flea Markets. The smart ones treated them like retail. You moved the product. If had to mark it down below your purchase price, so be it. MOve it and use the money to try something else. Eric

[RobertKB]

I think selling at Barrett-Jackson is a crap shoot with the seller coming out badly most times. I just don't agree with their policy of no reserve. When I first watched BJ sellers had the option of having a reserve or not. About five years ago they went to the no reserve. I personally would never sell a car at an auction unless I was able to put a reasonable reserve on it. Never will have that problem as none of my vehicles are BJ quality. I also think BJ and most buyers are there to be seen. Most overpriced place there is to buy a car.

[PatS....]

Most overpriced place there is to buy a car.

Unfortunately BJ seems to set an artificial benchmark in the stratosphere for literally every old car or parts thereof. From the top quality show winner to the completely rusted and stripped hulk, they all seem to think their vehicles are worth millions:eek:

They think if the 55 Chevy convertible loaded with every conceivable option and in better than perfect shape went for a billion bucks, then their clapped out 4 door wagon that looks like Tim Taylor dropped an I beam on is worth half that.

"These are worth a fortune restored you know"

No, they aren't but dream on.

(not speaking of you or your truck at all, Howard!!!!, just the hobby in general after a few televised BJ auctions)