Author: John Draneas

John practices law in the Portland, OR, suburb of Lake Oswego, where he focuses on tax and estate planning, business organizations and transactions, and representation of collector-car owners. He is a past president of the Oregon region of the Porsche Club of America and served as the chairman of the PCA’s 2006 parade. His collection includes two Porsches, a Ferrari, an Alfa, a Lotus, a BMW daily driver, a John Deere tractor — and one increasingly famous Jaguar E-type. This month’s “You Write, We Read” on p. 20 is full of SCMer advice on whether Draneas should restore his Jag.

Damaged at the Concours

“Bob” was pretty excited about showing his car at a concours. His 1967 Alfa Duetto Spider Veloce was in exceptional condition. Never wrecked, it still sported the shiny, original red lacquer paint with no significant flaws from the car’s 120,000-mile life. It was highly original — all the way down […]

A Truckload of Trouble

Mark Oberholtzer is the owner of a successful Texas plumbing company: Mark-1 Plumbing. One of the company’s plumbing trucks, a 2005 Ford F-250 pickup, had reached the end of its useful life. So Oberholtzer took it to the nearby AutoNation Ford Gulf Freeway dealership and traded it in on a […]

Is There a Ferrari Odometer Rollback Hack?

So how does a seemingly innocuous firing of a car salesperson turn into a public-relations disaster for Ferrari? Easy — all sorts of unexpected consequences can arise when a Legal File is created. (Note: No one contacted by “Legal Files” was willing to speak on the record. Consequently, we drew […]

A Wakeup Call for Smartphone Users

Finally, someone is doing something about it. We’ve all seen the telltale signs. We look at the driver in the next lane and see one hand on the wheel, head down and making furtive occasional glances up and then back down. At night, it’s even easier to spot, as the […]

Will Taxes Get Trumped?

Ihave to think I was in the clear majority of the country — I didn’t see much chance that Donald Trump was going to be elected president. What may have been even more astounding was that the Republican Party gained control of both chambers of the Congress. That sets the […]

Dude, Where’s My Car?

When you pull up to a restaurant or hotel and valet-park your car, it is reasonable to expect to get that car back in the same condition as when you dropped it off. Unfortunately for Mr. Carlo DiMarco, that is not always the case. According to a case filed in […]

Matching Numbers in Court

Put yourself in Gary Duncan’s shoes. He had owned this great, numbers-matching 1970 Pontiac GTO for over three years. He’d had some good fun with the GTO, but he owned a lot of cars and it was time for this one to move on. So he consigned it to an […]

Write Off Your Racing

Auto racing is expensive at any level. Often, a racer looks to reduce the cost by treating it as a business activity to deduct the expenses. Racers who do this have encountered mixed results when the IRS challenges their returns. If you are going to give this a try, it’s […]

A Drug-Fueled Car Auction

It’s safe to say that SCM has never before reported on an Apple Auctioneering Company sale — until now. Apple Auctioneering Company is an affiliate of Apple Towing Company, Houston’s largest towing company, and it bills itself as the “nation’s leader in seized asset management & government liquidation.” Apple seemed […]

A Soft Market and Hard Tax Choices

By now, everyone knows the collector car market has softened. The harder question is what will happen next. If you liken the collector car market to the stock market, you should be bullish. Every time the stock market has lost substantial value, as it recently did after the Brexit vote, […]