They are the 8 am on a Saturday and the cars are starting to shoot the parking lot next to the coffee not incorporated in Altadena. There is A TURBO DIESEL DE MERCEDES 300SD 1979 GREEN 1979 In the corner, sitting next to a vintage mustang of oxide-orange. On him, a brilliant Volkswagen MK4 R32 of him takes the slot next to a long blue passenger and a beautifully scratched chevrolet truck, which rolled his siren horn rolled.
To get to this week Altadena Cars & Coffee Meetup, a Saturday meeting place for cars enthusiasts, attendees had to cross a part of Altadena, passing houses and business reduced to debris through the Eaton fire. Tyreke and Traivon Jackson He spent his fate in Lincoln Avenue and Figueroa Street, where they had worked in cars during the time they could remember. The passersby would not have known what was in the lot before the fire, but now, with fences and foliage destroyed, the damage is clear.
“We lost an impala '64 convertible, a '79 Monte Carlo, two covered from 87 and an '83 Coupe de Ville,” said Traivon Jackson. There was also a 2002 Camaro in the lot, in addition to a 2005 Chevy Silverado, a Ford F-450 and a boat and its trailer. While the last two were essentially vaporized by fire, the burned shells of others remain, the steel sentries left by the flames.
Dave Stone estimates that somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 cars burned in the Eaton fire, and he would know. As @No_ev_altadena on InstagramStone has spent the last three months documenting the cars that are left behind, including those of the Jackson lot. He also created car meetings for those who follow or have appeared in their account. He was never a car boy before, Stone took walking through the burns in the immediate wake of the fire. Near the Altadena Country Club, in the middle of a strip of houses that were destroyed, he saw A Ford truck with fire potholesframed perfectly by palm trees. He thought he was “disturbingly beautiful”, so he took a photo on his phone, and in the days and weeks they followed, he captured more photos of the cars that remained.
Dave Stone, organizer of Altadena Cars & Coffee, in unbuilt -up coffee.
(Marcus ubungen / for the times)
Stone, who works in music licenses, was doing it, said, partly because his 13 -year -old son loves cars, but also because he felt he had to do it. Although he lives just south of the Altadena border in Pasadena, his heart broke for his neighbors and friends, as well as the community he admired. Stone decided to put all the photos of his car on Instagram, calling his “no ev” account After the phrase The Environmental Protection Agency paints pulverization in cars with gasoline after removing its batteries. (Electric vehicles get a blue ray, which is then painted white when their batteries are removed).
“Some of these cars saw World War I, World War II and Vietnam,” Stone said. “They lived through the disco and the heavy metal and the explosion of Challenger and the invention of the Internet and Barack [Obama] and on September 11 and the Iraq war. And then, at the end of their lives, someone simply paints 'no ev' about them, which is strange to me, as if the EPA says that something is what it is not. It is as if years from now on, when there are very credible robots that walk through our land, you must make your coffin say 'no robot' outside so that someone knows that he does not try to take off his lithium. “
Now, Stone said, he has taken more than 9,000 photos of Altadena's lost cars. He has published many on his Instagram, writing emotional blurs to accompany the snapshots, such as “are weekend cars. Those who are on the back. In the garage. Behind the house. You have to move all the cars in the way. He said he wants to be like” the Lorax for cars “, citing the popular character of Dr. Seuss, and hopes that his account can help the owners of the cars to the owners of the cars. Start heal.
And for some owners, the healing process has been stimulated posing for photos with their cars or rolling Altadena Cars & Coffee. If people want to come, they drink coffee with milk and look at beautiful cars, they can, but they can also use time to connect with others who know almost exactly because of what they are happening.
Will Stifel is next to his 1952 Ford F1 truck, which launched Dave Stone's interest in photographing cars burned by Eaton's fire.
(Dave Stone)
That is why Will Stifel was there. His 1952 Ford F1 truck was the subject of Stone's first photoAnd he had been in his family for 50 years. It was in the movie “Million Dollar Baby”, which was filmed in Altadena, and although Stifel originally thought that the truck, like the house that sat down, was a total loss, has been given a ray of hope in recent days. A car store in the serene has offered to try to repair the truck, which has little damage to the side that the fire did not face. The engine is still intact, and with only 56,000 miles in the truck, it would be a shame to simply disburse it.
“All in Altadena are scattered to the wind at this time, so you must have these events to join,” Stifel said. “It is good to be able to talk to people about how to rebuild or simply drink a cup of coffee and feel normal.”
For Lauren Ward, another assistant who has appeared in the @Not_EV account, being in Cars & Coffee is about the community. She lost her home and three cars – A 1957 Chevy 3200 truck, a Volkswagen MK4 R32 2004 and a Volkswagen MK4 GTI VR6 2004, and although it has managed to replace one of the VWS since then, it is still broken down talking about the effects of the fire.
“You need something that feels normal,” Ward said. “Many of us do not have houses or have houses where we cannot live, but come here with a car, any car, really, makes you feel that there is still a sense of community. Our neighborhoods could disappear and our neighbors could disappear, but through the cars, you can still connect.”
Ward likes particularly how Altadena Cars & Coffee welcomes all cars, from those who lost classic cars to those who cry their forest subar of Model Model. There are gears that go and people with Instagram accounts dedicated to their cars, but there are also people there as Kevin Kuzma, who lost the Chevrolet 210 of 1957 of 1957 of his deceased mother. She died a few years ago and left the Coral coral carHe had less than 50,000 miles, for his two children. While she had never fixed it as she wanted, Kuzma's brother thought she could try, as long as Kuzma could store the car until he could drive from Portland to recover it.
Now, in what Kuzma calls a “tremendously unlikely” result, since the DMV and insurance have considered the '57 “irreparable”, it has been Sold to people behind the classic cars of Pasadena. They plan to replace the engine and the interior, but transparent coating of the car's body as it is. They hope to take the relic burn to car shows that begin at the end of this year. Kuzma calls for sale of the car “The absolute scenario of the best of cases considering what happened”, and said that he and his brother plan to see the car once it is exhibited.
The fate of '57 is not very different from another car stone that appears on its Instagram. He recovered the Porsche 911 Slantnose of 1985 of many with the help of people he had met through the account and He took him to an event at the Petersen Automotive Museum. Stone thought that the burned shell could serve as a tool to raise awareness about the enormity of what was lost in Altadena, including not only the cars but also those who loved them.
Which includes Oswald “Ozzie” Altmetzwho lived in front of Kuzma and died in Eaton's fire. His grandson, the resident of Colorado, Tyler Walton, found @Not_EV_altadena when he was moving on Instagram earlier this year. Walton, a automobile body repaire and painter, invited Stone to visit his grandfather's property not only to capture photos of his cars, including a 1971 Volkswagen Westfalia and a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Airt “Von Dutch” Howard “Howard” Howard and Carryuring. Parade. He was in the city for his grandfather's monument, as well as for the Petersen event, but stopped to present his respects in Altadena first.
Dave Stone recovered this Porsche 911 Slantnose of 1985 burned in the Eaton fire to exhibit at an event of the Petersen Automotive Museum to raise awareness about the impact of the fire.
(Dave Stone)
“Cars & Coffee is great,” said Walton, “because it doesn't matter where it is in the United States, I know I can go to something like this and be surrounded by people who speak exactly the same language as me.”
The meeting has exceeded the unbuilt coffee parking lot and there are plans to eventually move to Bulgarini, an Italian restaurant in Altadena. However, the event will still have an unbuilt coffee, Stone said.
Due to people like Altmetz, Ward and the Jackson, Stone said that he is now determined to make cars and coffee the best car meeting throughout California. “We had all these crazy cars and builders, like these incredible and talented people, but nobody knew,” he said. “I have talked to people who said: 'I had no idea that my neighbors had that car' or 'I had no idea that they were also cars'. I guess all the fences and houses that we burn were taken to find ourselves.”
To obtain information on future meetings, follow @altenacarsandcoffee on Instagram.
