A fire ripped through an Ontario, California warehouse belonging to International Vehicle Importers on the evening of May 1, destroying two dozen rare and unusual cars. If you have a beverage nearby, now would be the time to pour a little out for the dearly departed.
“We lost 24 total cars, which is a small portion of what we have in the States,” International Vehicle Importers salesman Brian Jannusch told The Drive. Jannusch added that fire fighters were still extinguishing pockets of fire in the warehouse as of about 1:00 PM EST, and that the company was working to put together a complete list of all the vehicles lost in the inferno.
A post on the International Vehicle Importers Facebook page states the company is working today to remove the destroyed vehicles from their inventory, though it’s not clear how far along that process was as of this article’s publication. That post also reiterated that most of the company’s vehicles are located in other warehouses, describing the cars destroyed as a “small but meaningful” loss.
International Vehicle Importers, which is located in Ontario, specializes in bringing foreign cars 25 years and older over to the United States after they age out of the federal and state regulations governing safety and emissions. The company currently has 113 vehicles on its website, but only 20 of them are currently listed as “for sale,” with the rest marked “sold.”
While the company has everything from a 1990 Austin Mini to a 1974 Mitsubishi Jeep J36 listed online, the lion’s share of its business appears to be importing Nissan Skylines…which leads The Drive to fear the casualty list will be chock-full of JDM-spec GT-Rs.
Update: International Vehicle Importers has informed The Drive that the fire may have started at an illegal grow house believed to have been located next door to the warehouse. It has also announced that the company’s dogs, Max Morris and Gigi Morris, were lost in the fire.
Our thoughts are with Sean Morris and everyone at IVI in this sad time.