Cars
Los Angeles Was a Car Collector’s Paradise. Now 6,000 Are Gone
Car lovers and auto insurers are sorting through the aftermath of LA’s most destructive fires.
A classic car in LA’s Pacific Palisades on Jan. 8.
Photographer: Jason Ryan/Getty ImagesThe images are scenes from a car enthusiast’s worst nightmare. Bulldozers plowing SUVs out of the road so emergency vehicles can move through. A well-worn family wagon that survived hundreds of thousands of miles, now burnt through. Porsche 911s in a private driveway identifiable only by their signature roofline and a singed Fuchs wheel.
One image shows several collectible cars in a garage caked in ash and rubble. “They didn’t make it,” their owner, Pete Vlastelica, wrote in his Instagram story (@InCanyons). “They’re just cars. Special ones, but just cars.”