UPDATE: An Awful Day for a Fellow Mopar Lover
A few months back we did a feature of the lovely Challenger Girl Erica, who is the proud owner of a white Challenger Scat Pack. Erica recently moved to California where she met up with a photographer/editor from Dodge Forum’s parent company for a photo shoot. The results were great pictures of a beautiful Mopar girl with her beautiful Mopar muscle car. There is a link to that original story at the bottom of this piece.
Unfortunately, when Erica came out of her house last week, she found her beautiful Scat Pack Challenger buried under a fallen tree. She feared the worst, as through the thick branches of the tree, there appeared to be a significant amount of damage. When the tree was finally cut away, her fears were realized. Her Challenger was destroyed, and labeled a total loss by the insurance company.
Anyone who has owned a car or truck that they have truly loved can understand the pain experienced by Erica that morning, but it turns out her story gets much, much worse.
Erica’s Challenger Scat Pack was a lease vehicle, as when she ordered it, she wanted to get her payments as low as possible with the intention of buying the car when the lease terms ended. Furthermore, to get the lease payment down to a svelte $270 a month, Erica put $9,000 down on her car when she got it, so by the time that awful tree crushed her beautiful muscle car, Erica had invested some $12,000 in the car. However, because she was leasing the vehicle rather than buying it outright, Chrysler still owns the car, so when the insurance company cuts a check for the totaled Challenger, they will be cutting that check to Chrysler, not Erica.
Now, you might be thinking, “She should just go after the owner of the tree,” but that tree was on city land, so it is city property. If she wanted to sue someone for her losses, she would be suing the local government. Anyone who has been involved with a lawsuit with the government knows how well they can use their own laws against the people who have been wronged, so it is often an impossible suit.
In short, Erica’s Scat Pack Challenger was crushed by a city-owned tree, and because she leased the car, she might be out of a vehicle, and out of the $12,000 she spent on it in the last year. The person who did everything right in terms of buying and insuring the car is the one on the outside looking in, forced to be without her beloved muscle car while also paying for a rental until she gets some word from the insurance company as to how she should proceed.
To help deal with the added expenses of the rental car, a friend of Erica’s set up a GoFundMe account. You can help by contributing here.
You can also follow Erica on Instagram (click here to visit her account) to keep track of her story as she moves forward after the loss of her beautiful Mopar muscle car. If nothing else, stop by her IG account to offer your condolences on her loss – as we would all feel the same way if we were in her awful situation.
Here is the link to our original piece about Erica, with tons of pictures of her pristine white Challenger Scat Pack.
UPDATE 4/5/2016: Here’s the latest from Erica on her Scat Pack situation.
