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My name is Eric Maas—My family owns Classic BMW. I am very proud to host the monthly Cars & Coffee event at my dealership. I feel that now is the time to address some of your concerns and some of mine….
During the last 18 months I have had a couple of conversations with participants at our event that have informed me that their cars have been in some way damaged. While hiring security for each row would be an option I decided to ask our participants and our spectators to RESPECT the cars. Classic’s volunteer workers have been preaching respect for a few months and I have not had any communication from anyone regarding damage—so, I hope that the message has been received and we can all enjoy this wonderful show.
My issue has to do with RESPECT for my cars….I have a huge inventory of new BMW’s that I move out of the normal storage lot at Classic onto the front grass area near Spring Creek Parkway. I do this to offer more space for people to display their cars at the event. On Saturday, during the event 14 brand new BMW’s were vandalized. Evidently a small group of individuals walked around the inventory and keyed the cars—in a couple of instances they kinda went Picasso on the them. I will be posting the pics eventually. I will also be posting a link to the officer with the Plano Police that is currently investigating this crime.
If you have recollection of seeing these people performing this crime…please contact me at ericmaas@aol.com
I love hosting this event….but the future of an event like this is in jeopardized when anyone’s car is damaged. Or when someone gets out of control….It’s never easy to do something right. Please help me make this right.
Sincerely,
Eric Maas,
President, Classic BMW—Home of Cars & Coffee DallasThank you for this information… I will spread this to other forums as well
Eric, I cant believe people did that, with all the people around Im sure someone will talk and they will get what they have coming to them. I have cut and pasted your message to the club cobra website, maybe at the next cars and coffee check with the different car groups and see if they can do the same to there websites.
Thanks for the help in getting the word out…our security cameras do have the ability to scan that area, so we actually believe we have the act caught on tape. Any info that can be sent to me would be very helpful.
Eric,
First, now that I know who is responsible for allowing & hosting this event: THANK YOU!!! for having this! It is a truly awesome time every time I attend!
Thank you also to all the participants that bring their prized cars out to show. These people do not have to do this, they choose to! If this gathering gets a bad rep, car owners will stop coming out & the show will loose a lot of appeal.
As far as the a**-wipes that thought it might be cool to do what they did, a public hanging is in short order. Keying ANY cars is totally reprehensibly.
I really have never seen anything but respectable younger people attending the BMW C&C shows, but I am often too busy looking at cars to note everyone else attending (exception: the occasional cutie that passes by…).
Now if some little punks (who have un-fit parents) came in & were jealous that they don’t have something they want (a nice car), newsflash: go work for one!
I really hope that someone reports those responsible or that the police find them. Offer a reward to entice their buddies to narc them out. Once found, they should get skinned within inches of their life.
Eric, a guard for each row might be a little much, maybe just one person wandering among the new inventory, roping them off as “off limits” during the show, or just place a rabid rottweiler near the cars. If the dog catches a kid… 🙂 …lunch for him!
Everyone needs to pull together to make sure that something like this NEVER happens again. KEEP an EYE out for un-supervised punks…especially in groups!
Let’s all remember, it may not have been your car this time, but you could be next….
>>>Thanks for the help in getting the word out…our security cameras do have the ability to scan that area, so we actually believe we have the act caught on tape. Any info that can be sent to me would be very helpful.<<<
Post pics from the security cameras…someone has to know who they are…
Wow, that is really crappy.
I hope you find the punks that did this. If I were you I would post this on whatever local Corvette boards as appropriate – they were the closest to your inventory and may have recollection of shady people walking through there.
Aside from that, I would see if Plano Police might be willing to park one of their SkyTowers on site for the event. Purpose built to deter this type of thing, even if there isn’t an officer inside it. Just a thought.
@DarkL1ghtn1ng 47335 wrote:
Aside from that, I would see if Plano Police might be willing to park one of their SkyTowers on site for the event. Purpose built to deter this type of thing, even if there isn’t an officer inside it. Just a thought.
^ This is a perfect idea. That should not only eliminate any vandalism but any foolish hooning of the vehicles leaving show by doing excessive speed. etc. I’d definitely approve this option.
And thank you Eric for hosting such an event, it is greatly appreciated by the auto enthusiast community. 😀
I am also greatly appreciative of what Classic BMW does for this event. My family looks forward to C and C every month. I spend much of my time photographing the cars and occasionally I do photograph the entire parking area to reflect the crowd and car participation. I’ll examine my photos tonight to see if I picked up anything suspicious in the background.
Aside from the vandalism, would you classify the other damage as intentional or accidental? My fear is that as more cars get squeezed in and the event popularity continues to increase, there might be an increase in accidental damage. I’ve noticed that most people are very careful around the cars.
To address the damage that has occurred to participants of the event—what has been discussed with me has been accidental, but avoidable. Scratches caused by someone leaning on a car–(appeared to be a beltbuckle.) and another instance that appeared to be from a dog leash rubbing on a bumper…..There really is no reason for any damage to occur, if we all think about how important and valuable the cars in this show are…RESPECT is the key. We all need to think about what we are doing and make sure that no car will be in danger.
I truly appreciate everyone’s comments and I look forward to more great shows in the months and years ahead. We are currently speaking with Plano about a security tower at the sight. Thank to everyone for the ideas…
We have not been able to identify the vandals.
Eric
Sorry to hear about what happened. I’ll definitely keep my eye out for stuff like that this weekend.
Mr. Maas,
Thank you for hosting C&C. I am sorry to hear about what happened to your inventory. We will spread the word and be on the look out!
Kristy Land
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