New article in Dallas Morning News today, but not much new info.
Farmers Branch firm's custom Mustangs in limbo after police sweep
Custom car deposits, orders in limbo after police sweep of FB firm
12:00 AM CST on Wednesday, December 26, 2007
By TERRY BOX / The Dallas Morning News
tbox@dallasnews.com
Thirty months after ordering a custom-built Mustang from Unique Performance in Farmers Branch, Glenn Maselli no longer wonders when his $150,000 dream car will arrive.
FILE 2003/Staff photo
The 1967 GT 500 'Eleanor' Mustang featured in the 2000 film Gone in 60 Seconds inspired a businessman to build the cars, like the one Jerry Flynn is preparing for a coat of paint. The company created the cars from scratch using bodies and platforms from old 'donor' cars. Probably never, Mr. Maselli now says.
"At this point, I feel like I've taken a complete loss," said Mr. Maselli, 53, who is retired and living off disability in Merced, Calif.
FILE/Staff photo
Unique Performance founder and former CEO Doug Hasty (right), with Steve Sanderson in 2003, said his company has bought 'donor' cars to build every Mustang for which it had a deposit. The company got orders for at least 225 Mustangs, but built only 119. Like dozens of people throughout the United States – including celebrities, professional athletes and wealthy businessmen – Mr. Maselli gave Unique Performance a $50,000 deposit to order one of the company's hand-built Mustangs.
In less than five years, Unique Performance had acquired a high profile in the U.S. auto world with its 1967 GT 500 "Eleanor" Mustangs and 1966 GT 350SR Mustangs – cars it created from scratch using the bodies and basic platforms from old '66 and '67 Mustang "donor" cars.
It got orders for at least 225 over a five-year period, at prices ranging from $100,000 to more than $200,000 each, but only about 119 were built, company officials say. Then, last month, Farmers Branch police officers and detectives swept into Unique Performance's shop west of Interstate 35E, seizing 61 cars and alleging title irregularities.
Some of the vehicles were little more than battered Mustang hulks; others were in various stages of completion.
A few were customers' cars that had been returned for repairs.
Farmers Branch police allege that some cars' permanent vehicle identification numbers – called VINs – had been altered, and most of the cars are still impounded. No one at Unique Performance has been charged with any criminal offense.
"There's so much evidence," said Cpl. Chad Taylor, a spokesman for the Farmers Branch Police Department. "We want to be able to go through it and present a whole case at one time."
In a general response to the police accusations, Unique Performance says that it holds titles or bills of sale for every car seized in the raid, and that it had procedures for notifying authorities when the company replaced a body panel on a car that contained a vehicle identification number. And while Unique Performance acknowledges that financial problems slowed the delivery of some customers' cars, the company purchased "donor" cars so it could build every Mustang for which it had a deposit.
The complicated case got even more confused in news accounts of the bust.
Unique Performance bought 1960s-era Mustangs to create its cars. It never bought or sold vintage Shelby Mustangs, as some reports said.
Doug Hasty, a founder of Unique Performance and its former chief executive, declined to discuss the police case in detail, saying his attorneys had advised him not to talk about it. But he did explain Unique's general process for building one of its Mustangs.
The VIN number is stamped on sheet metal in two areas in the engine compartment.
If those panels are replaced because of an accident or rust, the VIN is often missing on one side of the car or both. Many of the 40-year-old donor cars had rust or had been repaired over the years.
When Unique replaced a panel, it was supposed to advise the state what it had done, and the state had a process for establishing the VIN.
Former employees who asked not to be identified said that Unique initially followed the procedure. But as orders began to mount, they said, some paperwork didn't get done.
"If we had to replace those aprons [where the VINs were stamped] – and we're talking about 40-year-old cars – we had instructions to notify the state and Farmers Branch and told our employees to do so," Mr. Hasty said. "We assume they did. But I can tell you I have a bill of sale or a title for every car" that was seized by the police.
Deposits, but no cars
Many of the 106 customers awaiting cars have an entirely different complaint: They contend that Unique Performance took their deposits and never delivered their cars – paying rent, overhead and the wages of about 100 employees rather than finishing the cars.
Unique had taken in an estimated $10 million to $15 million in deposits.
One customer in Dubai put up $487,000 toward four cars he has not received, according to a group of customers suing Unique.
Mr. Hasty denies the customers' allegations. But he acknowledges that financial problems at Unique slowed the progress on some customers' cars.
"I have a vehicle for every single deposit a customer has given us," he said.
Many of his customers – some of whom, like Mr. Maselli, have been waiting more than two years for their cars – doubt Mr. Hasty's assertions. At least a quarter of those have filed lawsuits against Unique Performance or are considering it, said customers involved in the cases.
Unique "just grew too fast," said James R. Bartee, 50, a retired Secret Service agent in Clemson, S.C., who paid more than $100,000 toward his car's $150,000 price. "Doug just went too fast from a working-class guy to someone with money."
Some Unique Performance customers are also suing Texas automotive legend Carroll Shelby, whose company granted a license to Unique in September 2002 to call its new/old cars "Shelbys." Both of Unique's cars resemble specialty Mustangs that Mr. Shelby built in the 1960s.
To complicate the situation, Unique filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in November, about a week after the police raid.
Mr. Hasty blamed financial setbacks for his company's failure to deliver cars on time.
"We have nothing to hide," said Mr. Hasty, who was running a workers' compensation insurance business in Irving five years ago when he decided to begin building the Eleanor Mustangs.
Inspired by film
He got the idea for the car from the 2000 movie Gone in 60 Seconds. The star car in the movie, nicknamed "Eleanor," was a silver '67 Mustang GT 500 that had been festooned with aftermarket parts.
Unique stripped the donor Mustangs down to bodies and basic frames. It replaced the front and rear suspensions with modern aftermarket components. New V-8 engines, ranging in size from 302-cubic-inch cruisers to thundering all-aluminum 427 V-8s from Shelby Automobiles Inc., were bolted in. The interiors were replaced, and the cars got new tires and wheels, high-performance disc brakes, modern steering units, custom body pieces and slick paint jobs.
As the company grew, it got national attention for the Eleanor, later adding the '66 GT 350 to its lineup and taking on 100 employees to handle sales and production.
For a while, everything seemed fine. Then, about two years ago, Mr. Hasty said, he received 22 engines from Shelby that wouldn't run. Another 73 cars that had been sent to a Shelby facility in Las Vegas – where prisoners performed some of the sheet metal and body work as part of a job-training program – "were built improperly," he said.
Unique Performance was also trying to develop a Shelby F-150 Ford pickup and was grappling with a lawsuit over using the Eleanor name from the movie.
"All of the revenue we received went into an operating fund," Mr. Hasty said. "And when you're involved with the engine situation, fixing the cars that went to Shelby, developing the F-150 and the lawsuits, you're looking at $1.8 million that we had to spend real fast. That put us behind."
Shelby ends agreement
Shelby Automobiles has denied Mr. Hasty's assertions, contending that Mr. Hasty never raised the engines or bodywork as issues until recently. And Unique Performance ultimately hired the Shelby official responsible for the engine and bodywork programs, Shelby officials say.
Two months ago, Shelby Automobiles sent Mr. Hasty and Unique Performance a notice terminating their licensing agreement. Shelby Automobiles met with Unique Performance officials in June after learning that several customers were suing the company because they had not received their cars.
"One of the reasons we didn't give the go-ahead on the F-150 project was we got suspicious that they were taking money from Customer A to pay for building Customer B's car," said Neil Cummings, a Los Angeles attorney representing Shelby Automobiles. "That's when we told him [Mr. Hasty] that he could not proceed until he had cleaned up this situation."
Even now, many disgruntled Unique customers just want their cars. And if Unique Performance can't deliver them, they want Shelby Automobiles to intercede.
"I'm a working stiff," said Mr. Bartee, the retired Secret Service agent. "I sold a couple of cars I had, worked extra jobs to pay for the car I ordered. But I figured this was backed by Shelby. He's an icon. I wanted to keep the car five or 10 years and send my daughters to college with the proceeds from selling it."
Likewise, Mr. Maselli sold a vintage 1969 Camaro he owned to raise the money for his 427-powered GT 350 Mustang.
"Shelby's name was 100 percent of the reason I did it," said Mr. Maselli, who was a mechanic at a poultry company in Livingston, Calif., before injuring his back. "I am definitely not a rich man. This is a big hit for me."
Carroll Shelby issued a statement in mid-December about the company.
"Everyone at Carroll Shelby Licensing has been disappointed by the recent events at Unique Motorcars," the holding company for Unique Performance, Mr. Shelby said. "Doug Hasty continues to blame everyone else for his problems when he should just look in the mirror.
"We sympathize with those who paid Unique Motorcars and never got their car. I want to assure them that not one dime of their deposit made its way to Carroll Shelby Licensing."
'Every conversation a lie'
After paying $162,000 in deposits on a $204,000 Mustang – and waiting nine months for delivery – Chicago real estate developer Bill Sipowicz flew to Texas in January 2006 to inspect the progress on his car. But when Mr. Sipowicz arrived at Unique's 28,000-square-foot shop in Farmers Branch, he said, he was told that his car had been shipped to the Shelby facility in Las Vegas.
Ten months later, he filed a lawsuit. Mr. Sipowicz, 49, said he had been able to recover about $100,000 of the $162,000 he is owed.
"Every conversation with them was a lie," he said. "I had always had Lamborghinis and Ferraris before this, and I'm going back to them now."
"It sounds like everyone is going to be out their money," added Bill Muckalt, 33, of Ann Arbor, Mich., a retired professional hockey player who played with the Vancouver Canucks and three other NHL teams.
"If Carroll Shelby had not been involved, I would have had my buddies build me one [of the custom Mustangs] for $90,000," said Mr. Muckalt, who paid a $120,000 deposit on a $164,000 Eleanor. "They said it would be a four- to six-month thing. Then it was eight. Then it was 12. Now, who knows?"
While Mr. Shelby is concerned about the situation, he has no obligation to intervene, said Mr. Cummings, his attorney.
"The licensing agreement was not one where we could go in and run someone's business," Mr. Cummings said. "And if you look at the first four years, Doug Hasty was OK."
Mr. Hasty, meanwhile, says he has little hope of rebuilding his business.
"We're in a horrible place," he said, adding that he was in the process of lining up $4.5 million from a local investor when Unique Performance collapsed. "It's a process I've got to live through for the next two or three years."
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