Bucks Blog: A Car Towing Tale of Woe

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times A car being towed in New York City.

5/17/13 | Updated with comment from towing company’s lawyer.

When we were looking for a home in a new city a few years ago, my family took a welcome break from house hunting to eat dinner.

We emerged from the restaurant just in time to see our car speed by — on the back of a tow truck. Apparently, we had mistakenly entered the incorrect parking space number in an automatic payment machine. We had paid — for the wrong space. So an alert local towing firm had pounced.

Our little adventure ended an hour or so later, after we tracked down the location of the tow lot and retrieved our car. The tow operator didn’t want to hear our argument about having paid for the wrong space, and the children were cranky, so we just paid the fee and went on our way.

But things didn’t go so easily for Robert Pelkey of Manchester, N.H., who sued a towing firm after it hauled away his car and then sold it, even though his lawyer told the towing firm he hadn’t abandoned it and wanted it back.

The towing firm invoked a federal transportation law to argue that his claim under a New Hampshire consumer law was invalid. The towing suit made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which this week ruled that Mr. Pelkey’s suit can proceed.

Here’s Mr. Pelkey’s tale of towing woe. In February 2007, a firm called Dan’s City Used Cars towed Mr. Pelkey’s 2004 Honda Civic from its parking spot because he had failed to move it during a snowstorm, per the policy of his apartment complex.

It turned out that Mr. Pelkey was ill, and ended up in the hospital to have his foot amputated shortly after the car was towed. He suffered a heart attack while in the hospital, and stayed there for nearly two months, according to a brief filed by his lawyers.

A notification mailed by Dan’s City to Mr. Pelkey was returned, according to the court’s opinion, so the firm scheduled the car for auction. When Mr. Pelkey did return home and found that his car was gone, his lawyer located the car and offered to pay any charges owed to reclaim it. But Dan’s City sold it anyway, without paying Mr. Pelkey anything for it.

Mr. Pelkey sued in state superior court, which found that his claims were pre-empted by federal law and couldn’t proceed. The state’s Supreme Court reversed that finding, so Dan’s City appealed. On Monday, the United States Supreme Court upheld the New Hampshire high court’s ruling. So Mr. Pelkey may yet be compensated for his troubles.

Adina Rosenbaum, a lawyer for Public Citizen and Mr. Pelkey’s co-counsel, said the Supreme Court “affirmed that people can bring state law cases against towing companies that tow their cars and sell them against the owners’ wishes.”

Andre Bouffard, the lead counsel for Dan’s City, said the high court didn’t rule on the merits of the specific allegations in Mr. Pelkey’s lawsuit. “There are still a lot of facts in dispute,” he said, like whether Mr. Pelkey had agreed to pay charges owed to the towing company. Those issues will be considered if the case goes to trial, he said. The two sides could also settle out of court.

Regardless, he said, the decision “creates a wider scope for state law suits not only against tow truckers, but also other motor carriers.”

Have you ever had a car towed? What was your experience? And how much did it cost to have it returned to you?

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Wheels Blog: The Flamboyant Cars of Liberace

Marty Lederhandler/Associated Press Liberace with a 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I, which he used in a Radio City Music Hall show in 1985.

“Behind the Candelabra,” the new HBO movie about Liberace, has a scene in which he drives up to his Hollywood home (it’s actually Zsa Zsa Gabor’s home, but that’s another story.) in a Mercedes-Benz 450SL, and arrayed around the driveway is a collection of cars as flamboyant as the entertainer.

Claudette Barius/HBO Michael Douglas, left, and Matt Damon in the HBO film “Behind the Candelabra,” directed by Steven Soderbergh.

The movie, making its debut this weekend and starring Michael Douglas as Liberace, is billed as a look into Liberace’s private life and loves, so it is no surprise that considerable screen time is given to the man’s cars. Jerry Goldberg, the marketing director of the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, said in a 2010 interview that over the years Liberace had owned at least 30 cars before he died in 1987.

For decades, the museum, which closed to the public in 2010, had a more or less permanent display of seven of his favorite vehicles. These included a gold metal-flake, customized 1972 Bradley GT that Liberace drove in Palm Springs, Calif., where he lived. There was also a 1957 taxicab from England; it still had a working meter that registered pounds, shillings and pence. The museum’s display noted that Liberace loved picking up guests in it and turning on the meter.

His “Bicentennial Rolls-Royce,” a 1954 model that was painted in patriotic red, white and blue. For a 1976 performance he wore an outfit, including hot pants, that matched the car and piano. Matching cars, costumes and pianos were a recurring Liberace theme, as familiar in his act as his signature tune, “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

One of Liberace’s more valuable cars was a 1962 Rolls-Royce Phantom V Landau with a retractable top. He had it covered in a mosaic of jewel-like mirrors, with patterns of prancing horses. It has been described as “a disco ball on wheels.”

Liberace’s collection also included a certain amount of schlock, of questionable value. One of his favorites was a replica of a 1931 Ford Model A; Liberace used it as a stage prop.

There is also a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible that Liberace commissioned George Barris, the customizer, to turn into a mini Rolls-Royce. The resulting mirror-encrusted creation was lathered in hot pink paint and had the license plate “VWRR JR.”

Of course, there is also the so-called Rhinestone Roadster, a sort of kit-car creation adorned with faux gemstones that matched a stage costume and the piano that was used in his 1986 performance at Radio City Music Hall.

That car, by the way, was on display in New York last week, along with other Liberace memorabilia, in conjunction with the movie’s premiere. The Liberace Foundation still controls many of the museum’s artifacts (although some have been sold).

His favorite car? Mr. Goldberg, the Liberace museum’s marketing director, said it was a 1954 Cadillac Eldorado presented to him by his old television show’s sponsor, Citizens National Bank.

But what was Liberace’s first car? Mr. Goldberg said Liberace’s first car, which he couldn’t afford to buy until he was already 30 years old, was a red 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 convertible.

Why that car? Though Olds clearly had a winner with the new 88 and Liberace loved the color red, why an Olds 88?

Eighty-eight matches the number of keys on a piano.

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Wheels Blog: Taking a Spin Around a Dirt Track in a Pro Lite Unlimited Racing Truck

Mike Caudill/Driven PR This Pro Lite Unlimited race truck is powered by a 347-cubic-inch Ford V-8.

LAKE ELSINORE, Calif. – Casey Currie drummed in one message last Friday during our laps around the track at Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park: “Slow! Slow down! Slow into the turn!” Currie, 29, who has motorcycles and Baja 1000 trucks, had good reason to worry.

After he had first showed me around the five-turn, about 1.1-mile course, we switched places. Now I had the wheel of this beastly Pro Lite Unlimited truck, a two-seat demonstrator that was otherwise comparable to single-seat entries in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, which competed here over the weekend.

Naturally, I envisioned soaring over the jumps, touching down on all four wheels and pitching sideways into each turn, where I would find the cushion on lightly packed dirt and shoot forward for the next suborbital launch.

But Currie communicated a healthy respect for the truck’s potency, its 2,800-pound mass, and its willingness to roll over if mishandled. He also stressed that the highly technical business of flying over jumps shouldn’t invite a cavalier attitude, lest we land on our chins or tailbones.

In fact, just before I had strapped into the driver’s seat and hooked my helmet to the truck’s intercom system, another driver in a 300-horsepower truck had gone end-over-end. Fortunately, he appeared to be uninjured after the wreck.

Mike Caudill/Driven PR Casey Currie, 29, was a little nervous about a journalist’s relative lack of experience behind the wheel of a racing truck.

For a reporter to get behind the wheel was unprecedented, so why was he letting me drive the truck? “I’m not sure,” he said, hardly able to hide his skepticism. “Have you ever driven on a track?”

My naming some big ones didn’t seem to allay his concerns about my ability. The fact is that he was stuck with a writer almost twice his age behind the wheel; the recent accident had clearly upset him.

While he was still strapped in, I nudged onto the track. As soon as the engine had fired up, normal conversation became impossible, but through the speakers inside my helmet Currie told me everything that could go wrong.

The truck’s lack of a windshield allowed me to see, ever so clearly, how imposing the jump hills looked. Rattling around in the back of my brain was a speech  that Rich Unferdorfer, the racing series fire safety director, had given at the drivers’ meeting. Flame-retardant socks were strongly encouraged, he had said.

Mike Caudill/Driven PR Ronald Ahrens, the author of this post, gets some wheel time.

Meanwhile, even though I’d bitten into my right cheek on a jump during Currie’s demonstration lap, I felt relaxed and comfortable in the racing seat. Cozied up to my right knee, throwing off a fair amount of heat through its sheet metal covering, the throbbing 347-cubic-inch Ford V-8 begged to go racing.

Reviewers of new cars might talk about instantaneous response, but boldly shooting forward in this rig required just one more red blood cell in my big toe. Everything about the truck reflected its intent to extend the driver’s reflexes. The steering had eye-blink directness. The tread of the big tires offered plenty of bite. And without 4-wheel drive, the truck’s rear-end wanted to swivel right around so we could power-slide through the corners.

“These ruts could make us roll over,” Currie said, breathing shallowly, as we entered a turn. “Are you braking?”

We seemed to be crawling, and I’d hardly touched the brakes on the first lap.

“Use the brakes,” he said.

Mike Caudill/Driven PR One of the turns at the Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park in California.

Noticing the white flag waving, he expressed astonishment that we had been granted a third lap (and then another, which seemed almost endless, for a wholly unneeded cool-down).

I turned off the track, docile to the last. At least I hadn’t lost control and ruined someone’s day.

Mike Caudill/Driven PR Ronald Ahrens drives a racing truck at the Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park in California.

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