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Bugle article=Freman's boneyard demise


Lapham3

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Got my issue yesterday and reading the story of this Montana yard now crushed out and closed. Pete indicates their past rep for higher pricing and I'd agree and add that it seemed to me to be WAY higher pricing. They are now added to the long list of yards gone away in recent years. I don't think any can continue unless their business includes a healthy late model inventory-the specialty 'old car' customers are too few to pay the bills. As the pics show the crushed cars and their scrap value, it does seem to me represent a rather large gap between the yards past parts prices and that scrap value tho-probably more to the story. Dan Mpls. Mn.

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OK Buick People: I DID talk with Neil Freeman a few months ago. He said his business was slowing down, true. My theory is that some of that was because he wasn't too friendly with customers. His prices were high and he seemed like he was sick of grinding. I guess a guy can take so much grinding. Hey even the tow guys seem to fall (haha). Neil told me he was from California and came to Montana in the 70's because he resisted being regulated.

He amassed approximately 5,000 vehicles. He also explained to me that at the prices he got for steel...were around $400-$500 per car. Multiply that times 5,000 and it's not hard to understand why he gave the entire yard da squish. I also got the impression that nobody was going to (past, present and future)tell this guy what he could or should do.

Personally...I would have done things much different. I would have streamlined the yard making things more user friendly, I would have got rid of lots of stuff that nobody would ever want and I would have lowered my prices a great deal. When word gets out that there's a deal buyers seem to flock. But...........it was his yard and his decision. Now it's Neil and his partner Sam (everybody's uncle) going to the bank. Mitch

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