ARMAGH, Pa. – More than a dozen fire companies from two counties were called out around 1 a.m. Monday for what officials are describing as a total-loss commercial structure fire on the 300 block of Killen Road in Indiana County.
ARMAGH, Pa. – More than a dozen fire companies from two counties were called out around 1 a.m. Monday for what officials are describing as a total-loss commercial structure fire on the 300 block of Killen Road in Indiana County.
Damn. That is a shame. Great business.
I lost track years ago how much of my money passed through that building. It's a loss for the British car community, that's for certain.
I hope the owner's insurance is in order... this feels like possibly one more step towards Moss Motors being the only game in town.
I've visited that shop a couple of times. Definitely a big loss to the LBC community.
Those damn Lucas Electical systems...
They were my go to shop for spitfire parts. Now one more reason not to own a brit car.
Sad. I hope they can rebuild.
From 1993:
I think it all depends on if they were doing reproduction parts in-house, if they were storing NOS parts or if this was just a warehouse of modern parts. If it were the latter, then they can probably get parts manufacturing back online. Injection molding, machining, casting - it's unlikely they were doing all (or any?) of that. Still, 48,000 square feet is a big warehouse, it's quite possible they were.
I know that if the FM warehouse burned down today, we'd be able to reproduce most of the contents within a year because we don't actually have priceless molds and machines there. There are some one-off prototype parts that would slow things down, but not that much would be lost forever. The lag time to refill the warehouse with no sales would hurt a lot though, as insurance would probably only pay for the actual contents and not the year of payroll it would take.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Having been there many times, the good news is that they had many parts reproduced from trusted manufacturers that they worked with to reproduce higher quality reproductions than many of their competitors. The bad news is that they had many original parts that were the patterns for many obsolete parts stored in that warehouse, many of them unavailable today. They manufactured parts like carpet sets, wood dashes and similar on the premises. So all parts they sourced from the UK and their specialist manufacturers can be reproduced and restocked again, but many special parts and 40+ years of history have been lost forever. They did save the remaining cars Charles had owned, including his TR6 and original TR3 and a racing Spitfire, but they lost an MGB he had build for his daughter and other cars. So much history, Charles life work was lost in that fire, hopefully Albert will want to rebuild the legacy.
Sorry to threadjack, but in reply to Keith, would the problem in your last sentence be addressed by having "business interruption insurance" in place? I've heard the term, but I've never fully understood what it covers.
In reply to Stealthtercel :
I have no idea, but I'm sure our insurance agent would be happy to sell us something :)
I'm an agent. Business Interruption Coverage (modern name: Business Income Coverage), is intended to provide lost revenue (gross profit) to the business after operations are forced to shut down following a covered loss. This allows ongoing expenses to be paid. Employee salaries, loan payments, etc. can continue. This allows the business to remain viable so that it can actually re-open after fire damage is repaired.
I'd be really surprised if a business this size did not carry Business Income Coverage.
The hard part for this loss I think will be putting a value to all of those molds, patterns, dies, technical drawings, etc. that they were using to reproduce parts. How do you value things that can't be replaced? That valuation question is likely to make this claim a slow process.
When I Googled this story, I came across a headline from "Autoevolution" published 12/28 that read "Car Restoration Business Goes Bankrupt After Massive Fire on Christmas Day", yet there was nothing in the copy below it to support any bankruptcy. I've seen nothing from any other source to support bankruptcy either. I can't believe any business would declare bankruptcy just 3 days after a fire. I've messaged the author to suggest she quote a source for that info or take that headline down as it could do a lot more damage than has already been done, especially if it went "viral".
Any of you GRMers know anything about that?
In reply to GopherBrokeRacing :
I'm going to check to see if we have that coverage :) I don't do our insurance.
The nice thing about modern manufacturing is that the drawings are digital, and easy to back up offsite. Molds and patterns and dies will be at the plant where the manufacturing is done. If they were doing wood dashes and carpets in-house, there may be some patterns that will have to be recreated. Maybe go through their recent sales and ask customers if they can buy back some parts?
I hope the bankruptcy story is just a lazy journalist. Hopefully the business can get back up and running. I'm closely involved with our inventory process, we could do it but boy would it be a lot of work.
What a shame. I have been to the building a few times, it was a cool place.
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