Yesterday evening a fire destroyed one of the warehouses of International Vehicle Importers. The Ontario, California-based company was well known in southern California and beyond for importing unique cars from Europe and Japan, with a specialty in Skyline GT-Rs, mostly R32s. Fortunately, no one was hurt, although manager Sean Morris posted the above image to Facebook with the accompanying message: “2 dogs missing. Max and Gigi. Lost 24 cars, 3 motorbikes, about 5 motorcycles. Lots of personal items.” [UPDATE BELOW]
Morris was on the east coast participating in the One Lap of America when news of the fire broke. A separate post on the IVI Facebook account last night read:
To our customers , followers, and fellow car enthusiast. As you made have heard there was a fire at our Ontario warehouse which sadly resulted in a total loss. Fortunately, the majority of our inventory is housed in other warehouses leaving a small but still meaningful impact on our inventory. We will be removing lost cars from our inventory tomorrow so if you see it on our website, it is still available and unharmed
We will have more details to follow soon
Those in southern California are likely familiar with IVI‘s frequent appearances at shows such as Nissan Jam and JCCS. We will have updates as they come in.
UPDATE 1 5/3/2016: The bodies of one of the dogs was found in the wreckage; the other one escaped and was found safe but shaken.
Images via Facebook; screenshot of video by Joseph Gerald
What a horrible experience, made all the worse by the loss of the cars and motorcycles.
Uh, the but not dogs?!?
I’m really hoping that the dogs got away safe and are picked up by animal control. I really hope thats not wishful thinking though…
Wow, that’s Sean’s company, don’t know if he owns it but… Wonder if the dogs were guard dogs.
Given his past, wouldn’t be shocked to find out this was insurance fraud.
Feel worst for the dogs. As Ryan said: hope they got away.
I find it hard to believe that a storage facility’s owner doesn’t have the sense to have a fire-suppression system in place. . . especially where there are flammables, like gasoline, involved, where you don’t have someone around all the time.
There was a stable near me that went up, with the loss of several horses, and some other animals. In the news broadcast, you could SEE a fire hydrant right out at the roadside, but the owners were too stupid to have a sprinkler system. Never mind the sadness of losing the beautiful animals; just from the insurance/lawsuit aspect, it’s utterly STUPID to not have something so small – and a business expense/tax write-off – to protect the investment.
Mental note: after hitting the lottery, have ZERO storage at any structure where a fire can go unchecked and destroy EVERYTHING.