A Horse With No Name

Against owners will.... http://www.telegram.com/article/2012...106219803/1116 WORCESTER — As David vs. Goliath struggles go, they don't get much more lopsided than a lone muscle-car enthusiast going up against a mega-bank with more than $2 trillion in assets. But that's exactly what Aaron Dahrooge of Worcester has been doing for three months now in an effort to get back his beloved 1973 Dodge Challenger. The distinctive muscle car, which is painted “plum crazy” purple and has a burly V-8 engine with a chrome air scoop popping up through the hood, was taken from the garage of his deceased mother's home in Burncoat in late March. Bank of America has vital information, but won't tell him, Mr. Dahrooge claims. His mother, April Dahrooge, died last year. Her mortgage lender, Bank of America Corp., had an ongoing foreclosure proceeding against the house at the time of her death. The foreclosure proceeding has not been completed, according to city property tax and state land records. Mr. Dahrooge said he stored the Challenger in the garage of his mother's house over the winter as he typically did because he was the executor of her estate. In late March, Mr. Dahrooge went to the house at 78 Uncatena Ave. with his teenage son to retrieve the purple Challenger, which he had found years before rusting in a field and fully restored into an attention-grabbing hot rod. When he pulled into the driveway, he immediately noticed the garage door had been padlocked from the outside. “I thought that was weird, so I went around to the back to look through the window and saw the car was gone. My heart just dropped,” Mr. Dahrooge recalled. A neighbor told Mr. Dahrooge that a work crew in a GMC Yukon had come to the house a few days before to winterize and secure it, a typical step banks take to protect their collateral in foreclosure proceedings on vacant houses. A sign posted in the window of the house reads: “Caution: this house has been winterized with anti-freeze in all drains and toilet bowls. Please run water through the drains before using.” The sign is dated March 19, 2012 — three days before Mr. Dahrooge came to get the car. The neighbor, who requested that he not be identified by name, said in an interview yesterday that he was outside playing basketball with his son in March when the same GMC Yukon pulled up to the house two days after the winterization work. “They unlocked the garage lock with their keys and towed the car out of there. The whole thing took five minutes,” the neighbor said. Mr. Dahrooge reported the car stolen, and the neighbor gave a statement to police about what he had seen. Mr. Dahrooge began frantically calling Bank of America to find out the name of the contractor the bank hired to secure and winterize the house. He called the bank numerous times, was transferred to different departments, left messages for various bank officials, he said, but never got anywhere. “I've called and called and called. Nobody will answer. When they do answer, they send you to some other department and things of that nature,” Mr. Dahrooge said. Spokespeople for the Worcester Police Department and Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr.'s office declined to comment on the case, saying the investigation into the missing car remains open. Bank of America spokeswoman Kelly E. Sapp said, “We continue to research the issue and are in full cooperation with law enforcement and legal authorities on this ongoing investigation. Should evidence be produced that shows wrongdoing by the vendor, we will act swiftly and take appropriate action.” Mr. Dahrooge scoffed at the bank's claim that it is in full cooperation with the investigation. The detective assigned to the case told him that the bank did not respond to a mailed subpoena seeking the name of the winterization vendor, so the detective served it again, in person, on a bank manager at a branch on Main Street two weeks ago, according to Mr. Dahrooge. “I can't tell you how many times I've called the bank. They're stonewalling me,” Mr. Dahrooge said. “Every time I called Bank of America, it was the same. They're the worst of the worst.” Mr. Dahrooge, who owns an automotive repair shop on Chandler Street and had used Bank of America for his business accounts, had gone to the same Main Street branch in March and demanded to know the name of the contractor that had done the winterization. He was thrown out of the bank, he said, after the exchange with the bank manager got testy. He returned a few days later and withdrew all his money and closed his business accounts. Bank of America made headlines in Pittsburgh last year, and ultimately apologized, when its contractor there broke into the home of a borrower, who hadn't even defaulted on her mortgage, while she was away. The workers padlocked the doors, shut off utilities and took her pet parrot, Luke, according to an account published in the Wall Street Journal. The bank has been hit with lawsuits alleging similar incidents in California and Texas, the New York Times reported. Ms. Sapp, the Bank of America spokeswoman, declined to provide the name of the winterization contractor to the Telegram & Gazette. Mr. Dahrooge said he still doesn't know the name of the contractor either, much to his annoyance. “They're withholding information about the location of my property,” he said.

I'm kind of over the old car thing for the moment... Now if it were a vintage Alfa GTV, or a Ford Lotus Cortina....yeah.... But it is a sweet looking car, you posted pics before.

Still a bland design, and the Civic Si redisn is really bland and wanting also. GTI Cooper Focus ST... What we really need are small Alfa Romeo's and the VW Sirocco over here.... I'm into small cars but this latest offering for the east is ughhh.,....

I would like to check it out in person myself.

\Maybe tail fins will return?

A Camaro to me would not need a V8, but it would need to be more nimble and playful than the current car. that being said, i consider the current Camaro a visual knockout.

I personally like the Fusion better than the Malibu, but I find them comparable.

Agree with Dfelt, selling these in China would be an excellent idea.

i AGREE WITH THIS, WHICH IS WHY i SAID A FUTURE PROPOSITION... And your probably right also...and sorry for the caps lock. Development could be shared with an out of house company....also Cadillac could team up with someone like riley to build a race only version of said halo car, thus having an image car that didn't have to meet eleven billion gov't standards. I like the idea of GM strutting its stuff...but don't know how practical that would be....

An excellent idea for removing bolts!

Love it!

My friend Richard co drove My Miata at our last race, and he races an E36 M3. I think I'm going to get a chance to race his car at some point. I'll let you know what it's like! As usual...you would be very correct sir!

That would make it a car that I'd be much more interested in buying. We looked seriously at a new Camaro when we bought our MINI, but it was too large and too heavy for what we wanted.

Bingo...I think Perdue guy has "cracked the code" as Olds would say.

I think it would be a great idea in about a year or two, when GM has some continued profitability and they are in a bettter position for financial risk. But you guys all know how much I love racing and performance cars.

Chbrystal red would be nice, I think. How is the dashboard at night....? And how is this car for night driving, and longer highway hauls? ...and also please the brakes in a panic situation or nearly so. How do they feel? How did the ABS feel?

Yeah...the car is just kind of funky enough to be even more awesome....

Actually I disagree. Look at the Tesla S roadster....or the Fisker Karma...or why else is Porsche building Hybrids? The volt is a sexy car, actually....and I'm glad to have another brand or type of auto enthusiast, ones who like electric cars.

Looks good, DF!

The Dart looks like a darned nice new car.... Glad to see it making it to market. Should really help Chrysler,.

Looks like the answer: http://www.wdrb.com/...damaged-by-hail I guess either never sold whatsoever, scrapped, or sold in some form as write-offs. Just like all of those Mazda's that would up being scraped after being marooned at Sea on the Cougar Ace.... One hell of an insurance write off...but I'm sure Ford pays plenty in premiums.

I like the Kia and the Jag you got a chance to check out... Thanks for sharing this with us.