never give up.

[Cooter]

Myself, along with two others always had our doubts about the 'Christine' movie cars. Yesterday, after being called every name in the book from jealous haters, to plain ole sh*t stirrers, we finally got these scammers to admit that Bill Gibson's car was fake as a $3 bill.

Back in the beginning, (2002), a guy we all knew as "Coach" owned the car. He asked Martin in .ca. to 'varify' it for his terminally ill son Derrick. So he said he kinda remembered seeing the car in the yard as he was there. Well, some just took this as law as there really weren't as many scammers as there are today. About halfway through the saga, some began to question it's validity.
we were shunned. Coach stated he couldn't believe we would do this to his poor son. We backed off.

FF to around 2006. Coach decides to sell Christine as a real movie car. Enter Bill G. He buys it with only the word of Martin S. As "proof".
Sale price was around $67k.
Derrick passes away in 2010. We give it a year or two and begin to question again, this time on FB where we couldn't be banned and shut up so easily. We got the same remarks only worse now that poor Derrick was gone.

Coach stated that the guy he bought it from was long dead. Guess what? He's alive. Bill calls him and he confirms it was fake. Just another clone with a sprinkling of movie parts. Coach finally fesses up and states he knew it was fake, but couldn't tell Derrick.
my question is, why didn't Coach wait till Derrick was gone, THEN come clean about the cars history. Everyone woulda understood, THEN SELL IT. I know why now....a good clone woulda only brought around $25-30k.
With all the scammers out there now, this cannot be allowed to happen. I feel not one bit sorry for any of the three involved. Let em rot in hell.
Never stop huntin the truth even if your called everything under the sun.

[Kern Dog]

How well documented were the movie cars? The General Lee stunt cars had additional ID tags for quick reference but those were not for legal purposes, just a quick reference for the stunt teams.

[TUFCAT]

Death to all shitters! 

[Charger-Bodie]

Death to all shitters! 

1979.

[Cooter]

How well documented were the movie cars? The General Lee stunt cars had additional ID tags for quick reference but those were not for legal purposes, just a quick reference for the stunt teams.

A member here owns the 'Bill and Ed's" book so none of those VINs can be used. As for the other cars out there, they were documented and only TWO per Richard Kobrits, were ever known to have been allowed into the public. One was an MTV giveaway car, the other sold at BJ for $160k.

Thing is, Martin verified this car and claims to own one himself. (Moochie chase scene).
I question that one now.

[RallyeMike]

Death to all shitters!  icon_smile_tongue

[Ghoste]

Thats why I get wound up about rebodies and stuff.  With all the clones and imaginary cars built in recent years and being passed off as real it is only going to get worse in the future.

[Cooter]

Thing is, if Bill hadda just kept taking the car to local shows and enjoying it himself, I wouldna gave it a second thought, but he has been paid every time he does a show. He's making a living off that car. It's a slap in the face for those of us who only claim tribute status.

I coulda lied numerous times and said mine was real, but I don't. Another thing that amazes me is the amount of gullible people in the world who buy these cars with no research. None. $67k on a car that only one guy "claimed" was real???

[Dino]

Cooter you know as well as I do that there's a sucker born every minute.  Actually it's more like every 8 seconds but who's counting!   

People like that are leeches, plain and simple.

I so despise what has come from the classic car hobby that I have resigned myself from most of it.  This site is my only real connection to that world.  I cringe when I see dime a dozen cars pass the auction block and demand high prices while when they were new they were just plain run of the mill cars. 

I was looking for some small parts on ebay this morning and got disgusted with all this NOS bs.  There's a console vacuum gauge on there now for a mere $800.  Sick 

I hate people trying to get rich off of this old crap.  And we wonder why young people are not as interested in the hobby anymore.

If I didn't love my car so much I'd say goodbye to all of it.

[Cooter]

Only the strong (read stubborn) survive Dino. I was here before the idiot flippers, before Mopar was the flavor of the minute, and I'll be here picking up the pieces of the hobby after these bastids move on to something else.

[Bob T]

Thing is, if Bill hadda just kept taking the car to local shows and enjoying it himself, I wouldna gave it a second thought, but he has been paid every time he does a show. He's making a living off that car. It's a slap in the face for those of us who only claim tribute status.

That's just plain wrong, what a prick.

Yeah, good effort to stick to your guns, its the only way forward  .

There was a guy out here with an 1971 Ford XY GTHO ( the factory low build count, hi po one) who had spent years and $$$ restoring it to take it to auction asking around $250k when a day before the auction some guy stepped forward and said it was a rebody that had been rolled out in the sticks back in the 70's. This guy knew about it cause it was his mates car then and had worked on it as well. This was bad news to the current owner who knew nothing about it or even suspected it was a re body with the original cars running gear but the auction got canned anyway. I still see it around but he's never been able to sell it it afterwards.
It matters though, and it was the right thing to do to step forward.

[69wannabe]

I got alot of verbal beatings about my charger on another forum(not worth saying which one) because John S. "Bo Duke" signed my deck lid and it says "keep it tween the ditches" and below that it says "this one was mine once"  I bought the car as a 68 general lee clone in forest park Ga from a guy named Breet Popwell. He told me when I bought it that it could be shown where John S has owned the car and I just kinda laughed it off. I just wanted a charger and wasn't worried about the other. Somewhere around 2006 I went to a premiere of the collier and company movie in Hixon Tn with hopes of getting an autograph on my charger which was in alot better shape now than when I bought it. It wasn't great but a nice looking General Lee pretty much. So due to traffic John was late getting to the theater and once he was there he had to get strait to signing autographs inside the theater. I decided to try and get out to his RV after the movie was over and luckily he came walking right up to my car and Breet was with him. I asked if he would sign inside my decklid and he was super nice and said sure. So as he was signing my car and Breet was telling him that the car was the one he had sold to me that they purchased back in 99 and he said oh yeah I remember this car and then he signed it  "this one was mine once" Well I was just excited to get it signed period with a little bonus I thought. I still didn't get the whole story until a year later at dukefest 07 and I ran into Breet and asked how was this john's car once? He said that him and John had planned to buy the Boar's Nest in covington Ga and had purchased the charger for a picture car but the deal had fell through because of zoning issues of the building and some other legal issues about that location being used as a business because it was zoned as residential. So after the deal went south they split the things that were purchased and sold everything off and the charger was some of the items to be sold off and thats when I bought it. It was basically owned under a company called Bopop Industries which was John and Breet's company name and the car was owned by that company for a short time and thats how it came to be his car at one time. I never claimed it was a "real" general lee or anything like that but if anybody asks I try to explain about the signature as honest as possible. Which now it's a solid hemi orange charger instead of a general so it doesn't come up that much anymore about the signature thank goodness. Now it's an R/T clone but I make sure that anyone who asks knows the vin number is a base charger and not a true R/T. Just sad to see people trying to make that big sale passing cars off as movie or TV cars or even trying to pass base model cars off as the higher end (R/T,SS, etc) cars. It's all about that almighty dollar tho...

[Bob T]

Good story 69wannabe, thanks.
Yeah, all to easy to jump on the band wagon but better to plough your on track bud, ups to you 
I seem to remember Cooter has met JS before and there was a clip of him riding in Cooters GL clone at Carlisle a while back but he doesn't bang on about it which is cool too. From what I could see from the clip it seemed like JS was just more of a regular guy that enjoyed other peoples rides without getting too wrapped up in the whole star gig. Neat.

[Ghoste]

Anytime I've seen him at a car event that was pretty much my take on the guy too.

[Cooter]

Good story 69wannabe, thanks.
Yeah, all to easy to jump on the band wagon but better to plough your on track bud, ups to you 
I seem to remember Cooter has met JS before and there was a clip of him riding in Cooters GL clone at Carlisle a while back but he doesn't bang on about it which is cool too. From what I could see from the clip it seemed like JS was just more of a regular guy that enjoyed other peoples rides without getting too wrapped up in the whole star gig. Neat.

LMAO! there's a pretty funny story as well. Long story short, never attempt to tell JS how drive your General Lee.
you WILL see a side of John many do not see..... (yes, I got to see that side)..