1957 LaDawri Sebring - #4

[0nebadbug]

Ugh... this is going to be long.

When we wound up with the LaDawri, the only thing that the person that purchased the entire warehouse & it's contents is that he was told by someone that it was built by a father & son in our general state line area in the late 50's. Who that person was we have no idea. He also said it could have been in the early 60's as well but was pretty adamant about the late 50's & specifically kept stating 1958.

(if you zoom into street level view of that warehouse, the overhead image is newer and how it is now but from street level when you see an old blue GMC motor home & one of the fire trucks it is an older image & was how the place looked around the time we found it and if you plug the co-ordinates into google earth you can even roll the imagery times back even earlier but will be only overhead satellite imagery, you may be even get as far back as the 70's seeing as it's next to the airport, I've never looked though, maybe I will later this week and see what GE shows)

Shortly after getting it I started checking around thru local public records, and did find the actual auction listing which was an estate sale & not an asset liquidation that would be done from something like a bankruptcy. So, my understanding & assumption is that someone must have passed away around 2002 (maybe the son? distant relative? a partner? ...I have no clue) but I guessed that there were probably no living immediate family members to distribute it to so the entire warehouse & contents was auctioned off by the state.

After that I looked farther into public local county & city records there was still no mention of any actual name other than some concrete/masonry company that constantly kept popping up (and if memory serves me right I think it was Rock Valley Stone Enterprises, or something very similar to that). Which made a little sense as the field surrounding the warehouses was littered with mountains of concrete forms, mortar mixers, heavy 70's construction trucks etc... all just laying abandoned in an unkempt10 acre tract of land & 8 foot tall weeds & you could easily tell that nothing there had been touched in at least 10 years or, probably longer...

So, after that, I tried looking for info on the concrete company but that pretty much spit back dead ends other than that a concrete company did exist there from the late 60's thru the late 80's, maybe the early 90's. But again, still found no specific name of an owner or an actual names.

After all of that... I even tried contacting SIU (the parking sticker on the windshield from 1965). And when I contacted them they said that they would not have paring permit records that went that far back. But did say that some may be somewhere but that they would not even know where to begin looking for them... And of course, for a hefty fee to pursue it, and I didn't bother pursuing that any further...

And from there, my son lives next to a state trooper and we gave him the 1975 license plate that was still on the car when we initially pulled it out of the building & after he checked into that (and the vin as well) he couldn't find anything in their digital database so, again, total dead end, But also did suggest the DMV, but when I checked I think the fee was about $100 they had no guarantee a result would be found & sounded like it would be as long as a 6 month or more... So nah...

Somewhere along all of that above, when my son started tackling on shortening the beam to fit the 17's we had on it, when he had the beam removed, according to him, somewhere up inside & underneath that somewhere in that general area he said he saw a very faint marking that looks like the numbers '58/4'. He tried taking a couple pics but didn't show up in his pics & when I brought my camera the following weekend to try to take a photo with a better camera by the time I got there he had already re-installed the beam so, if the markings are there I would have no clue the significance of them or if it has any bearing on anything, I really don't know because I never saw it to say one way or another... For all I know it could have just been a dimension note of something, a weird old tar stain or some funky shaped cobweb or just a shadow...

And the most obvious, which should have been the easiest way to get straight to the bottom of everything... well, that didn't work out so well... While we did get it's original 1957 title with it? Due to it's age all of the ink on it faded off... about all it showed was the printed title from our states printer press used in those days but every scrap of the information (other than part of the vin) written onto in regular inks simply faded into nowhere, owners name, address etc... and no matter how we explained it at the DMV's (we tried 3 times at three different locations) and even having the bill of sale & a state issued bill of the auction (the guy we got it from, got one for every single car in the warehouse but because it was in his name they wouldn't accept it from us) each DMV just laughed & absolutely rejected it. So we had no choice but to go thru our insurance company for a bonded title (which they fucked up & issued the new one as 1956 instead of the 1957 model year & after a 2 year waiting period & $500 we weren't about to start the entire process over). And from our insurance company that did the legwork we were supposed to get the original one back but for somehow we never got the original back & I wish I would have taken a picture of it to this day...


(Side Note: When the warehouse was auctioned off, the first person that actually won the auction? When he went to pay up his check bounced and couldn't finish the transaction within 7 days, so the state went to the 2nd bidder who was the person we got it from but... I am assuming that the 1st bidder must have been connected to the warehouse or it's contents somehow... maybe a co-worker, a distant relative I have no clue. But on the day my son was driving by and literally stumbled across this about when the first 6 or 7 cars were just being pulled out from of the warehouse, and in the end I believe we counted 37 cars in total inside the building... the oldest vehicle was a 1917 Model A center door, the nicest car was a 1928 Durant... and then a bunch of 40's & 50's Hudson, Plymouth & Dodge huge 4 door sedans and a pile of all original mustangs including a 1966 GT500 Fastback, 1 1968 GT350 Sedans & 1 1968 GT350 Vert (YIKES!)... and then a bunch of what I call old circus type carss & trucks, or goofy things you would see driving in parades & such... And then there were also 1/2 a dozen Beetles & the Ladawri... And outside the building there was maybe 1/2 a dozen 50's, 60's & 70's fire engines and a pair of 70's GMC motor-homes gutted all parked hidden behind the building. ...and then of course probably 1,00's of boxes of 'stuff' packed in, around every vehicle in the building and in some spots were stacked up all the way to 16' ceilings)
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::: Slowoval ::: LaDawri Sebring ::: '61 Creampuff ::: Dust Storm '66 :::

[millerleft]

Wow,that was a lot,but,all helpful and interesting. Do you still have the windshield sign with the LaDawri logo that you displayed on the car during the show you took it to? Randy Carlson seems to think the electricals are a combination of 6 and 12 volt parts. What do you know? Thanks again. Sure wish the title didn`t get turned into a 1956. Maybe Florida DMV can fix it. Still waiting for it to be transported. Seems as though the SEMA show has everyone booked.

[0nebadbug]

Yeah, the electrics were a mish-mash, and had a 6v generator & regulator on it (not by our hand, that's how it was when we pulled the car home)... and then found that all the lights were 12v bulbs so we just grabbed a 12v coil we had in a drawer & rather than buying a 36hp style Porsche 12v genny ($$$) we just opted for a 12v battery (always kept fully charged and were getting 200 mile trips with no problems ever) and just went around the charging circuit to not ruin the working generator (which tested fine while we had it in our hands)

And yes, I still have those image files I used to make the 2 13x19 posters... if you would like the files (or new prints made) just PM me....
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::: Slowoval ::: LaDawri Sebring ::: '61 Creampuff ::: Dust Storm '66 :::

[dlearl476]

[0nebadbug]

[0nebadbug]

Looking nice in her new home...

...I liked it's original Red better but, I gotta admit, her new colors do have a nice appearance, more beach oriented : )

_________________
::: Slowoval ::: LaDawri Sebring ::: '61 Creampuff ::: Dust Storm '66 :::

[0nebadbug]

Kinda neat, got an email from the current owner & that little old Ladawri in it's new digs just got published in a full spread feature article in ReinCARnation magazine. ... ...

See page 46 https://www.rcnmag.com/ezines

There's also an article about the VW FunFest in Effingham earlier this year as well in the same issue...

_________________
::: Slowoval ::: LaDawri Sebring ::: '61 Creampuff ::: Dust Storm '66 :::

[mark tucker]

Sweet!!!