Malibu Wheels & Waves car show
A little over a month ago almost all of Malibu was on fire. Wind-whipped flames swept over the hills and down the canyons of the oceanside community as powerful Santa Anas blew the devastation all the way to the sea. Over 1000 homes were destroyed, three lives were lost and damage estimates have run as high as $6 billion.
But just a month since containment of the blaze one sign of normalcy returned to the area: Fireball Tim’s Wheels & Waves car show in Malibu. Wheels & Waves is the product of car designer Fireball Tim Lawrence, an Art Center grad who has designed cars for Hollywood blockbusters like Batman, Jurassic Park, Knight Rider and the TV show Monster Garage, among many others. His sheer Energizer Bunny enthusiasm has brought car shows to The ‘Bu for many years now. One of them was planned for early November, but the fires swept through and cancelled it. Sunday the show, and the temporarily unfortunately named “Fireball,” were back.
A Camaro and a Firebird outside a burned-out house in Pt. Dume, just up the coast from Wheels & Waves
“I’m grateful that people can show up,” said Lawrence, red Santa hat on head, microphone in hand welcoming almost 100 cars, trucks and motorcycles to the show in the posh parking lot of Malibu’s Cross Creek shopping center. “Among all the other losses, people lost cars, too. One guy, Gary Cerveny, lost 58 cars and 17 motorcycles. I’m just glad to see so many people come out.”
Lawrence lives just down the road from the show, and rode out the fire in his house, safely and luckily away from the flames. Others evacuated.
“Oh gosh,” said Hagerty insurance regional manager Ashleigh Powell, who lives just up the coast from Wheels & Waves. “I woke up to the sound of my landlord’s mom banging on the door saying, ‘We’re being evacuated.”
Powell threw whatever she could think to grab into Hagerty’s Ford Explorer and fled.
“I couldn’t drive south toward L.A. because of the traffic, so I drove north on PCH into the smoke. It was pretty insane.”
Powell’s home was spared.
“Luckily I had 15 neighbors who stayed and fought the fire, everything else burned.”
Others were lucky this time, but less so in fires past.
“The fire in 1970 really changed my life,” said Wheels & Waves attendee Jimmy Smith. “I had just shot a pilot for a TV show, it was really going to be good, I was really going to go places, but the film was all in the producer’s studio in Malibu and it was all lost.”
Smith instead ran a livery service, with a fleet of limos. He said he lives across the street from actor Martin Sheen, and said he taught the Sheen kids to drive. When the fire came through this time, he and wife Stephanie Jo were able to flag down a passing Sheriff.
“I told him, ‘If you get a fire engine down there you can save 20 homes.”
They got four and saved all 20.
Lawrence told of music producer Thom Panunzio, who has worked with everyone from Bruce Springsteen and Alice Cooper to Joan Jett and Ozzy Osbourne. He lost three classic cars as well as 50 gold records. The first thing Panunzio bought with his insurance money was a Ford Raptor.
“The fact is that people can overcome an awful lot,” said Lawrence. “This town is made up of people who know what a comeback is. Malibu will come back.”
