By Steven Symes 
Tragedy struck in the tiny town of St. Pierre-Jolys, Manitoba recently as a fire destroyed over $1 million in custom classic cars stored in a building. We hate to see tragedies like this one where multiple dream rides aren’t just a little ruined but instead are melted husks of their former selves.
A missing family’s car has been found 66 years later.
The blaze struck in the middle of the night at a custom shop called Respec Performance. After the owner got word of the fire, he showed up only to stand and watch as his entire business and all the custom cars his team built and hadn’t handed over to customers were incinerated.
In total, ten cars were lost. Footage from City News taken long after the flames were smothered show the vehicles, most of them unrecognizable thanks to the heat from the fire leaving them looking like candy bars left in the sun.
Among those lost was the owner’s first car, the one that got him into the hobby, a heavily modified Mazda RX-7. A Chevelle he built for his dad was also irreparably damaged. The owner and one of his employees lost their wedding cars, the sentimental value in those rides far exceeding their market value.
We hope everything was insured, although filing the claims is going to be a nightmare. And you can’t buy a new vehicle, loading all the memories into it.
If you have a car collection, whether it’s in your personal garage or in an industrial building like this, it’s worthwhile to look into an automatic fire suppression system. We don’t know if that would’ve prevented this fire, but it could be what saves your beloved rides from a disaster similar to this.
Exactly what started the fire is still under investigation by authorities.
Image via CityNews/YouTube