I was implying that they’re probably not Wall Street Journal subscribers.

I think there’s more to the story here. 99.9% of people have no idea who Carlos Ghosn is, much less care. And the people who do know aren’t exactly the Leaf’s target market.

Renault owns 40-odd percent of Nissan. Easier said than done. 

Sure as hell smells like a hatchet job. It came from the inside, so someone definitely wanted him out - that, or they take compliance more seriously than I give them credit for. 

Can confirm.

Or, at least, pay up and get a space in a garage.

We’re very, very far from danger. We had a fire a couple of miles away last year (see here) but even that didn’t threaten the campus. Fires like this don’t spread through urban areas.

By California standards, Paradise is pretty damn rural. 30,000 people is practically a village.

I mean, that’s like stealing a Picasso - it goes into some private collector’s hands and disappears forever. I’m not sure I’d put this truck in the same category...

Of course not. They wouldn’t do it if there was a danger to themselves. The focus is on people and structures; other property is secondary. But if the cause is lost, and a vehicle can be saved, then fine. 

Sure, but it’s not like demand for parts for an old Mazda pickup is through the roof. And this thing looks like it’s been modified so much that most of the non-identifiable valuable bits are already gone anyway.

I understand why a thief goes after an Accord/3 Series/whatever. But whenever I read about someone’s oddball project getting stolen... Why? Just what are you going to do with it?

I think we’ve learned over the last 24 hours that folks around here 1) have no idea what firefighters do and 2) don’t understand how insurance works.

Yeah, because that was definitely an option they forewent to save the car. Seriously?

Why don’t they just let the fire burn everything down? After all, all those homes are insured, too.

Yours was a reasonable and intuitive reaction - and you’re entirely right: I would expect the fire department to push my Subaru out of the carport if they were able to do so. If they’re only going for $200k Mustangs, then I’d be the first to pile on.

No.

These people triage. They wouldn’t be pushing a car out of a garage if they could be saving someone’s life instead.

We’re also sanctioning the Sanchi, which... Sank in January off the coast of Taiwan. Maybe Uncle Sam knows something we don’t?

They took a $500 million hit on recalls. So, yeah - I wouldn’t start ringing the alarm bells just yet.