Among the people who have lost everything in the deadly California fires was a noted car enthusiast whose collection of 30 classics was destroyed by the conflagration.
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Malibu residents Gary Cerveny and his wife, Diane, were described in a Hot Rod article as “the best kind of car collectors.”
“Gary puts a heavy focus on actually driving his cars, so both he and Diane have spent track time in their ’60s Indy racers, cruised the streets in a belly tanker and terrorized the California countryside in a street-legal (!) sprint car,” the mag reported.
One of the destroyed cars was a streamlined Norman Timbs Special, “which was burned beyond recognition,” according to friends from the Old Crow Speed Shop on Instagram.
Timbs, a mechanical engineer, created the 18-foot-long swooping concept car over two years in the late 1940s. It was discovered in the desert in 2002 and restored by Dave Crouse, according to conceptcarz.com.
Cerveny also had a 1965 Pontiac GTO gasser, a ’66 Dodge Dart, ’50s Indy roadsters, a Nanook Fuel Altered, a ’40 Ford and a Studebaker kart hauler, Autoweek reported.