Nov 6, 2007 8:35 pm US/Central
Farmers Branch Exotic Car Company Raided
by Stephanie Lucero
DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ―
Farmers Branch police are investigating a company that they allege is running an exotic car scam.
Imagine spending six figures on an exotic car and never receiving the vehicle.
That's what Farmers Branch police said happened to customers who bought from a company called Unique Performance.
Unique Performance restores wildly popular and very expensive Shelby Mustangs, a limited-edition muscle car. It can cost more than $200,000 to restore one car.
The company deals with customers all around the world, and the investigation has revealed many are suing the company. CBS 11 first found out about the investigation through an e-mail from one of our viewers.
Since Monday, police have confiscated 64 vintage cars from the company.
Many of the cars could be worthless because the vehicle identification number has been removed. Steel plates with illegitimate numbers covered up the scratched areas where the VINs used to be.
Tuesday, the founder and president of the company, Doug Hasty, would not comment on why the vehicle identification numbers were scraped off the cars.
Farmers Branch police said they have evidence that the titles on the vehicles were fraudulent. Police say they believe the company was involved in title-washing.
However, Hasty's attorney said the company has done nothing wrong. Mike Pappas said they have documentation to prove the vehicles were being legally restored.
While Hasty wouldn't speak about the matter Tuesday, he did speak with CBS 11 News two years ago when we did a feature story on his company. At the time, the company had a licensing agreement with automotive icon Carroll Shelby.
"He called me up and said, 'Hey. I'd like you to build some of these cars.' That's not a problem. Ten to 15 of these… we could handle that," said Hasty. "He said, 'No. I'm looking at a production of 400 to 475 of these cars."
The Carroll Shelby licensing company said it is in the process of terminating its licensing agreement with the company.
(CBS 11 News)
