[MSN] Vandals target vintage car collection

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Vandals target vintage car collection
Curtis Wackerle - Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Thu 03/15/2007 11:01AM

Woolley considered donating his 1960s original Aspen bus to a museum celebrating black history because of its likeness to the bus that made Rosa Parks famous.

Now, the bus, and dozens of other historic vehicles in Woolley's collection sit vandalized, as a rampage in late February left more than 100 windows broken out across the lot where for 30 years Woolley has kept cars in various stages of disrepair.

Woolley, 70, can't estimate the dollar amount the damage caused, but some of the broken windshields on cars — some 50 years old or more — are next to irreplaceable, Woolley said. He is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrators.

Pitkin County Sheriff's Deputy Jesse Steindler said the sheriff's office has no suspects in the case, although Steindler and Woolley believe the vandalism was the work of youths.

"I imagine most of us threw a rock at something and broke it out," Woolley said, "but not 47 windshields."

Woolley's lot sits along the Rio Grande Trail near Emma, which he believes entices vandals to target his property. Although it is the most drastic, the latest act of vandalism is not the first the lot has sustained, Woolley said.

"It's just senseless really," he said. "I guess I need a better fence, but a fence don't keep everybody out."

The vandals — or vandal — went to quite an effort for their cheap thrills. They walked on top of cars to navigate the tightly packed lot. They also entered the garage, pulling items down off the walls and vandalized a 1947 Ford coup in the garage that Woolley was working on.

As a telephone company worker in Aspen for 30 years, Woolley said he acquired much of his collection through all the people he met going about his work. He pointed to an early 1970s Lincoln with a broken out yellow tinted sunroof — a pretty slick car in its day — that he got from a well-known Aspen banker.

His collection also includes the frame of a Ford station wagon that supported a ride Woolley used to drive at the old Woody Creek raceway. The low-rider cruiser didn't win many races, "but I sure had fun," Woolley said.

Woolley said he'd rather keep the cars around than send them to the dump because "there's a little bit of history there."

"Everything has a story," he said.

Included in Woolley's collection are a 1930s school bus and the remains of a 1920s Buick, neither of which were vandalized, Woolley said.

Woolley said he's worked on cars since his high school days here in the Roaring Fork Valley. Although he is not a wealthy man monetarily, he said he could always scrounge together a few hundred dollars if he saw a car — the quirkier the better — that he could add to his list of projects.

"I guess I've never had a new one so I've always been wrenching on something," Woolley said.

Anyone with information about the vandalism is encouraged to call the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office at 920-5300.

Aspen Daily News
Printed From: http://www.aspendailynews.com/article_18612