Unique Performance, maker of Eleanor, is in big trouble!

[Go Hogs Go]

Check this out. I hope nobody was expecting their Eleanor soon!

http://jalopnik.com/cars/breaking-news/oh-no-eleanor-unique-performance-accused-of-title-washing-319267.php

[terrible one]

Haha ouch! Well that's a way to raise profit. . . not having to buy the real thing to start!

[68charger383]

The scary thing is if you had $25,000 or $50,000 deposited for a car and now they may be gone tomorrow with your money

[moparstuart]

 wow i saw a show on them and they never all there cars where real shelby's in fact they said they were looking for any fast back mustanges they could get    they were dismantling  a six cylinge car on the show  ?

[Old Moparz]

And people wonder why swapping VIN tags & calling it a rebody is illegal?

I hope they prosecute the hell out of them & put them completely out of business.

[69charger2002]

yeah i agree. that is just sickening. what sucks is all the people losing a ton of money.. that hurts the worst.. more car people that will likely get out of the hobby now
trav

[Go Hogs Go]

I'd venture to guess that this has already put them out of business. I don't see how a company selling mega buck cars can recover from something that serious.

[Leonidas Rex]

With all of the Shelby clones out there now as it is, maybe this will help. As a Shelby owner, I love it!

[Charger_Fan]

Not for one second did I ever assume those cars may have started as actual Shelby cars, that would be a total abomination to do that to a real Shelby, IMO.
However, I did not know they are trying to pass them off as being real Shelby's of some sort. What kind of moron would think he could actually get away with that? If these cars were standard Shelby clones, I could almost see someone trying to pass one off as real...but a CUSTOM Shelby?
And merely 'registering' it into the Shelby registry does not a real Shelby make.


In a way, I'm glad. I'm tired of seeing so many Eleanore clones...the "ooooh" factor is long gone. Gimme a real one & I'll drool on that all day.

68rtchargerstang67, I assume your Shelby is a '67? My favorite year!

[TruckDriver]

WHOOPS!!! I love the looks of those cars too as well as the movie. (I have the original movie too). I agree with what Travis said. 

I always knew they were not real Shelbys that were converted to Eleanors. I forgot what tv show did a segment on them a few years ago, and the Unique guys said on that show they were just plain Fastback Mustangs, some with V8s, and some were 6cyl cars. If I remember right, it was either "My Classic Car", or "Dream Car Garage" that did the segment on them.

That's okay, I am running outta drool looking at the black and grey Roush Supercharged Mustang at the dealer here in town

[HITMAN 149]

jason giambi from the yankees bought a super snake a while ago from them... it was on one of them TLC shows (rides i believe???).
at least he got his!!! 
who cares if they use a friggin 4cyl mustang? they tear it all down to nothing... and build it up all brand new!!!!
it's wrong if they say it was originally a real shelby!!!
they in troublllllllle.. ooooooooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

[moparstuart]

jason giambi from the yankees bought a super snake a while ago from them... it was on one of them TLC shows (rides i believe???).
at least he got his!!! 
who cares if they use a friggin 4cyl mustang? they tear it all down to nothing... and build it up all brand new!!!!
it's wrong if they say it was originally a real shelby!!!
they in troublllllllle.. ooooooooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

    thats the same show i watch and they didnt advertise them all as real .     they did do one for some guy out of his original car shelby  but thats what he wanted dont and it started out as a rust bucket

[bull]

I'd venture to guess that this has already put them out of business. I don't see how a company selling mega buck cars can recover from something that serious.

So you've never heard of HLPAG I take it?

[hemihead]

yeah i agree. that is just sickening. what sucks is all the people losing a ton of money.. that hurts the worst.. more car people that will likely get out of the hobby now
trav

The people that buy these aren't car people.They are just investor types with more money than brains. Someone with some influence must not have liked his car that he got or was too far down the waiting list and called in the law.

[remta1]

I'd venture to guess that this has already put them out of business. I don't see how a company selling mega buck cars can recover from something that serious.

So you've never heard of HLPAG I take it?

[Go Hogs Go]

I've heard of HLPAG, but I've never seen them make the national news before. The story is also being covered by CNN and several other media outlets. Maybe they'll do a story on them next, but I doubt it. I'll beat ya that the average Jo spending 15K-30K on a General bondo bucket does not noramlly have the means vigerously prosecute. A person willing to pay 200K for a toy probably doesn't give a care about happens, and can raise a lot more hell.

[sixpack70]

Whats sad is those fastbacks will probably be crushed making them even more rare. The eleanor thing has run its course though. Don't see the craze that tore up a lot of good mustangs to make them rolling plastic pieces of junk. The good thing with Chargers are they don't usually get screwed up with plastic parts, just 26" clown car wheels every so often.

[Mike DC]

The whole thing seems unclear to me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Was U.P. claiming to be delivering Eleanors made from real 40-year-old Shelby Mustangs?  Is that the ruckus? 

Or is this just a case of the news reporter not understanding a common practice for the old car hobby?  Making gorgeous cars out of old junker unibodies that they bought cheaply isn't fraud per se. 



And in this case I fail to see the relevance of whether a specific unibody has ever had a "salvage" title or not.  One would assume that the U.P. customization would render any given unibody's past history pretty irrelevant once the smoke clears.  (I'm not saying that makes it right to lie about a car's past, but I'm saying it should remove the need/care to lie about it in the first place.)

     

[bull]

The whole thing seems unclear to me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Was U.P. claiming to be delivering Eleanors made from real 40-year-old Shelby Mustangs?  Is that the ruckus? 

Or is this just a case of the news reporter not understanding a common practice for the old car hobby?  Making gorgeous cars out of old junker unibodies that they bought cheaply isn't fraud per se. 



And in this case I fail to see the relevance of whether a specific unibody has ever had a "salvage" title or not.  One would assume that the U.P. customization would render any given unibody's past history pretty irrelevant once the smoke clears.  (I'm not saying that makes it right to lie about a car's past, but I'm saying it should remove the need/care to lie about it in the first place.)

     

It's not that convoluted. It's a simple case of the police telling the reporter that VIN fraud is illegal and that it happens to effect as many as 61 people who have or are investing $200k each. They only know what the police are telling them. The courts will decide the rest.

[Really?]

Guy on eBay had a posting about 3-4 weeks ago about how he had sent them bunches of cash and had NOTHING but a photo of a wrecked fastback shell to show for it. From his post you could go onto a thread where a few other folks were sharing their story of wallet rape by...ah, welll..."Unique Performance!" Guy might be back on there-look in 'Shelby' listing if I remember correctly.

[69bronzeT5]

Werent they the guys who made that UGLY green 68 Charger with the ugly dash and funny "pimped' wheels?? If so, they deserve to be shut down

[Old Moparz]

What's not to understand? I reread the entire article just now, & it's apparently clear as to why they are in trouble. This is the paragraph from the article.

When Farmers Branch, Texas police raided the place they found 61 vintage cars (the video report from the local CBS affiliate shows mostly Mustangs) in various levels of construction. After lifting the hoods, cops found VIN plates to be fake. And underneath? You guessed it. They found signs of significant scratching where the old ones were.

A fake tag is a problem.

[69bronzeT5]

I wonder if the cops will crush all the cars because of the fake tag...that would suck. Such a waste of muscle cars

[1FastCharger]

Werent they the guys who made that UGLY green 68 Charger with the ugly dash and funny "pimped' wheels?? If so, they deserve to be shut down

That was West Coast Customs for the show Street Customs.

[Brock Samson]

pic of a blue eleanor i spotted this year at the Jimmy's picnic...

about 20 feet from where last yr. there was another red eleanor...

i asked the owner of the blue one if he knew the owner of the red one, and he seemed shocked there was another one there the year before...
i thought it was weird they were with in a few feet of each other a yr. apart...

hey,.. Maybe their not "Shelbys" their :Shelbes"...