Unique Performance in some trouble (restoration shop)

[camarojoe]

Foose cuts ties with Unique Performance

Foose Cuts All Ties With Unique Performance

Curious to see how long it takes for Mothers, Year One, and Mac Tools to pull out.

[nitroinsane]

how could they think they would of got away with this shit

[HotRodKid]

Fucking unbelievable. I told you Eleanors were bad news…

61 Eleanors just got away again !!!

it would be totaly fucking amazing if someone went and carjacked a finished car and spent all day running from the cops

[mike125k]

I got a private tour of their shop last year around this time when I was down in Dallas. Here are a couple pictures I took inside. Was really cool to check the place out, sucks for all those people who are getting screwed now.

[TrueBlue]

Fucking

WOW

[Violator]

I cant believe those fucking idiots had completed cars towed

[Rx3]

usually when a company grows at a rate like that they are making “shortcuts”. Sounds like Motorex a few years ago

I was just about to say the same thing :word:

[rskrause]

I think of rich people as being smart, at least about money. Amazing that it’s so easy to rip them off for $200K.

[Viper966]

I think of rich people as being smart, at least about money. Amazing that it’s so easy to rip them off for $200K.

i think everybody has that same “threshold” but as average disposable income rises common sense seems to go inverse… but for some reason trust goes up

[HotRodKid]

I cant believe those fucking idiots had completed cars towed

why ? UP was changing Vin numbers on their mustangs in order to cut corners, now every mustang the cops suspect to have a tampered Vin is impounded

bare body or complete car makes no difference, all cars have been moved to a secure location so the police can inspect them w/o having to worry that UP is going to tamper with them some more

any cars w/ their original Vin’s will be returned, and the ones w/ tampered Vin’s … well … who knows … but chances are UP will at least be allowed to strip off the parts they installed.

this is being done to check for stolen vehicles and to make an example out of the company

hell, as long as they can prove the cars were OBTAINED legally, id be willing to bet that UP can just get DMV assigned VIN’s for the cars, just like theft recoveries

[Violator]

why ? UP was changing Vin numbers on their mustangs in order to cut corners, now every mustang the cops suspect to have a tampered Vin is impounded

bare body or complete car makes no difference, all cars have been moved to a secure location so the police can inspect them w/o having to worry that UP is going to tamper with them some more

any cars w/ their original Vin’s will be returned, and the ones w/ tampered Vin’s … well … who knows … but chances are UP will at least be allowed to strip off the parts they installed.

this is being done to check for stolen vehicles and to make an example out of the company

hell, as long as they can prove the cars were OBTAINED legally, id be willing to bet that UP can just get DMV assigned VIN’s for the cars, just like theft recoveries

LOL! worried that UP is going to TAMPER with them? They fucking built them. They have respect for the cars unlike some douchebags that towtruck for a living. Cars worth 100 - $200,000 each are sitting in some shitty outdoor impound lot. Might as well be behind a gas station.

Tons of hotrods have had VIN swaps for one reason or another. The problem with UP was that they did not deliver cars in a resonable amount of time after payment was made. It had dick to do with VIN swaps. Thats just the guvi getting involved and making their own mess after other complaints.

[cky89]

usually when a company grows at a rate like that they are making “shortcuts”. Sounds like Motorex a few years ago

QFT. I read up on the whole Motorex story a little bit after it happened.

[Viper966]

link to motorex story?

[JustinH]

I think of rich people as being smart, at least about money. Amazing that it’s so easy to rip them off for $200K.

Yeah they get a sense of invincibility so to speak.

A person close to me lost over $125k by wiring money to someone on the internet for an exotic car.

Never to be seen again.

Even for a big time multi millionaire, thats quite a hit to take.

[brent_strong]

From what I’ve heard from people close to Tecstar, the issue wasn’t VINs directly. The issue was paying tax on the manufacture of a vehicle. Apparently UP bought VINs from Shelby that were stamped and destined for cars but never used. These VINs never had a manufacture tax paid on them. When UP added the Shelby VINs to the new chassis they had bought (I guess they were buying new chassis from a vendor), they never paid the manufacture tax.

Makes a bit of sense. I haven’t read up lately to see if that is being reported or not though.

[HotRodKid]

LOL! worried that UP is going to TAMPER with them? They fucking built them. They have respect for the cars unlike some douchebags that towtruck for a living. Cars worth 100 - $200,000 each are sitting in some shitty outdoor impound lot. Might as well be behind a gas station.

Tons of hotrods have had VIN swaps for one reason or another. The problem with UP was that they did not deliver cars in a resonable amount of time after payment was made. It had dick to do with VIN swaps. Thats just the guvi getting involved and making their own mess after other complaints.

UP has already tampered with vins to SOME degree, otherwise there wouldnt be scrape marks under some of the vins

vin swaps are 100% illegal, it doesnt matter if “everyonme is doing it” or not its illegal

police officers have this weird job … catching people who do illegal shit

and they dont give a damn if they are $200k cars, plenty of lambos & ferraris get impounded every day.

god forbid a bunch of completed cars have to sit in the sun for a few weeks while the cops sort shit out

but yea your right, VIN swaps isnt the reason this started, if they had delivered cars on time this wouldnt have happened, but thats the way shit works.

its just like how plenty of traffic cops have busted people for speeding and made major drug busts in the process … the stop was all about the speeding and the drugs were just a “oh hey look what else we managed out of the deal” thing

[Rx3]

From what I’ve heard from people close to Tecstar, the issue wasn’t VINs directly. The issue was paying tax on the manufacture of a vehicle. Apparently UP bought VINs from Shelby that were stamped and destined for cars but never used. These VINs never had a manufacture tax paid on them. When UP added the Shelby VINs to the new chassis they had bought (I guess they were buying new chassis from a vendor), they never paid the manufacture tax.

Makes a bit of sense. I haven’t read up lately to see if that is being reported or not though.

If that is true, it proves the point that IRS> * . Don’t fuck with Uncle Sam’s cut.

[TrueBlue]

Shit gets deeper… UP is holding auctions, selling off parts, with “questionable” legality. One guy even went so far as to contact the court in UP’s county to see if you could buy stuff cheap with no hitches:

OK, so I called the Dallas bankruptcy court, who put me in touch with the Trustee in the case. I talked to him for a while and here’s what he said:

1. There are two entities involved in this situation, UP and another related company. The related company has not filed bankruptcy yet but the court is considering including the related in the Chapter 7 since they are so closely tied.

2. There have been no court-ordered sales of assets in this case. There is a preliminary hearing coming up but no assets of UP have been released for disposal.

3. There is a high degree of fraud that has been discovered so far. There are cars involved that UP does not have legal title to. Because of the money involved and the alleged illegal activity, the FBI is now involved.

4. Title washing is suspected, as were several other forms of blatant fraud.

5. Regarding the high level of fraud, owners and some employees of UP are not to be trusted. Any parts or cars purchased from them are purchased at the buyer’s risk.

6. The Trustee, Court and local police were not aware of these sales but their existence does not surprise the Trustee, given the amount of fraud in the case.

7. Whether or not the sales are technically legal at this point, the Trustee strongly advised that for our own protection, we take all of these facts into account before we purchase anything from anyone associated with the company.

What I inferred from the conversation (these things were NOT said directly by the Trustee):

1. There are several vehicles and bodies for which UP can not provide proof of ownership. Title-washing was taking place.

2. The Craigslist sales may or may not be legal, but at best are an end-run by the related company or an employee of that company to liquidate assets before they are tied up in the bankruptcy.

3. Since there is no way to track ownership of these parts, there is no way to track where the proceeds are going. You could be purchasing parts from a stolen vehicle, and your money may be going right back to the owners of UP.

4. Wherever the money travels, you can be sure that it is not going back onto the balance sheet of UP, which means the rightful owners of those parts and/or money will never see it.

The point? Caveat emptor.

AND - They swapped out eBay names and are selling stuff through the net:

I sold a 67 Fastback to Unique about 2 years ago. I remembered their ebay ID was “umcars”. Just for kicks, I figured that I would see if they were selling anything on ebay, especially since I understand that they filed Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in late November.

It seems that they changed their ebay ID from “umcars” to “don777s” so that people couldn’t figure out what they were doing. It seems that they have sold many items that look to be from Unique. Here is the list of what they sold:

http://search-completed.ebay.com/search/search.dll?GetResult&seller=1&sofocus=so&sabfmts=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&ftrv=1&rd=0&fis=2&ftrt=1&fsop=1&sass=umcars&fpos=45102&frpp=50&from=R10&satitle=&sbrftog=1&sacat=-1&saobfmts=insif&sadis=200&guest=1

Here is what is actively being sold:

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=so&sbrftog=1&guest=1&rd=0&frpp=50&from=R10&satitle=&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&sadis=200&fpos=45102&sabfmts=1&saobfmts=insif&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&seller=1&sass=umcars&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D2

I am surprised that they had a “garage sale”, but that was somewhat non-traceable. Ebay is very traceable and is really risky in my opinion.

The stuff listed and sold seems to be from Unique.

So, basically, liquidating assets, that may or may not be theirs, before they’re siezed.

I’m waiting to see what this does to the GT-500E values. My guess is there’s no such thing as bad publicity - unless you work for UP.

[camarojoe]

I guess someone caught on to them
The seller User ID you entered was not found.

[TrueBlue]

There were a few guys that bought parts from them, too. I just wonder how many hoods, fenders and engines were paid for on someone else’s dime.