Vandals target Lincoln man's rural car collection - Lincoln Journal Star
If the vandals had smashed the windshield of his Ford Taurus, Roger Pickering could get it replaced in hours. But it's not so simple finding good glass for the split pane of a 1940 New Yorker, or the passenger window of a 1957 Ranchero, or the wraparound windshield of a 1960 Thunderbird. They stained a couple of cars with yellow spray paint -- “Dalton S. was here” -- and they dumped transmission fluid on the hood of a rare 1953 Kaiser Manhattan, leaving a blood-colored stain on fresh ivory paint. “It’s happening over a period of time,” Pickering said. Deputies have been called to his land four times since 2011 -- three times this year -- documenting more than $17,000 in damage and stolen items, including a ’52 Plymouth transmission and a Model A fender. Pickering owned Eastern Nebraska Auto Recyclers when he bought this land and its 3,300-square-foot house in 2005. The house had been through a fire, and he never intended to repair it. He wanted it for storage for the few cars he kept after he... He and a couple of friends moved parts and tools and about 15 cars to the yard, the shed and the shell of the house. The scrap metal thieves probably found the property first, stripping it of most of its heavy and precious metals -- transmissions, compressors, conveyor tracks and radiators. They left the boxes and boxes of seat covers and stacks of Hot Rod and True Detective. Source: journalstar.com
