Thursday, July 26, 2012

CAR BUILDER KILLED IN A SHOP ACCIDENT

Unfortunately, I just learned that today, July 26th, a friend, Glenn Shimmin has died.  Glenn was the owner of A to Z Auto Parts in Colville, WA, and a builder of hot rods and a member of the American Graffiti Tribute Team.  Apparently, he was working underneath a car when an accident caused the car to drop down on top of him, and crushed his body.  That is all I know about the incident so far.  I first met Glenn  when he had built a replica of the Pharaoh's '51 Mercury. Below I've posted a video that I made a few years back, talking to Glenn about his '51 Merc tribute car  The video is a good indicator of how likable and friendly he was.  Most recently, he had been working on completing a reproduction of the '55 Chevy featured in  American Graffiti.  If there's anything that could be said that's positive about this tragedy is that he died doing what he loved most: working on cars.  I'm still in shock and trying to process this event and don't know quite what to say at this moment in time, except that Glenn was a super-cool guy who touched a lot of people's life including mine and I am happy to have known him.  My best goes out to his wife, and 2 adult children that survive him.

Glenn Shimmin & Jackie Travers (widow of Graffiti's Transportation Mgr., Henry Travers).