Posted on 07/07/2014 12:50:46 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Les Gold, one of the stars of the reality show 'Hardcore Pawn' on truTV, bought the Volkswagen minivan during a taping of the show. The vehicle used by the controversial doctor when conducting assisted suicides is an important piece of the city's history, he said.
The Deathmobile lives on.
The famed 1968 Volkswagen Minibus used by controversial Dr. Jack Kevorkian on assisted suicides with his patients is currently on a layaway plan at the American Jewelry & Loan in Souhfield, Mich.
Store owner Les Gold, one of the stars of the reality show "Hardcore Pawn" on truTV, told the Daily News he sold the vehicle to a Detroit area car dealer who plans to display it in his store.
The vehicle is currently in the back of his shop until the owner pays off the full sale price of $25,000.
Gold said the vehicle is an important part of the city's history as Kevorkian — a crusader for assisted suicide — would use it when treating patients. Kevorkian died in 2011 at the age of 83 and served an eight-year sentence in prison.
I do a lot of interviews and I'm always asked, 'What's the strangest item someone has tried to sell in my store?' The Deathmobile. That has to be one of the strangest items American Jewelry & Loan has ever taken in.
The vehicle is considered a taboo by many in the Detroit community, but Gold said he believes it should be preserved. He said he wanted to keep it himself, but the vehicle takes up too much room.
"With history you have to take the good with the bad," he said. "What better piece of Detroit history than something like this?"
Kevorkian, who is believed to have conducted more than 130 assisted suicides in the 1990s, had sold the vehicle to a scrap yard in 1997, but the Deathmobile survived. The owner then sold it to Gold during a taping day of his reality show for $20,000 last year. The seller wanted an amount in the six-figure range, but after a series of haggling they flipped a coin to determine if the sales price would be $20,000 or $40,000. Gold won.
"I was very excited (to have the chance to buy the Deathmobile)," he said. "The only thing that made me more excited was getting to buy it for $20,000 instead of $40,000."
The vehicle was listed on eBay in 2010, but the company made the owner remove it because of its association with murder.
Gold himself had trouble finding a buyer and said he offered it to local museums, but had no takers.
The vehicle is pretty beat up and doesn't run, Gold said. It did not come with any tools or other Kevorkian memorabilia, but the buyer did have copies of his registration and driver's license to prove authenticity.
"I do a lot of interviews and I'm always asked, 'What's the strangest item someone has tried to sell in my store?'" he said. "The Deathmobile. That has to be one of the strangest items American Jewelry & Loan has ever taken in."
Tacky to say the least.
Treating???
Fits the show and family.
This is like the ghouls who sold John Wayne Gacy’s clown paintings. Someone should buy this thing and destroy it.
It’s Detroit, what can anyone expect from a democrat craphole other than something like this. It’s a democrat city that itself committed suicide with the assistance of the democrat party. I have little doubt that Dr. Death is a local hero.
Tacky = Kardashians
Gruesome = Kervorkians
I don’t think I have more of a distaste for any other family on tv.
Yes, Les. It represents Detroit, like nothing else could...............A dying Motor City and a Death Mobile.........
Politically correct wording. We can’t say that he was administering lethal drugs to his patients in violation of his Hippocratic oath.
I was living in the Detroit area when Kevorkian was running around offing people. And actually most of the locals had the good sense to be offended by what he was doing, and by how that made the state of Michigan look to the rest of the country.
Oh what a difference a couple of decades make.
Does it still have an Obama/Biden bumper sticker?
I was rooting for Kevorkian to do one and only one more assisted suicide.
That of his attorney, Geoffrey Feiger.
A more detestable chap I have rarely seen.
This van was on Pawn Stars. Rick Harrison, the guy on the show, passed. He doesn’t buy creepy stuff.
The ones used by the US federal Death Panels will be a lot more up to date and cool.
Our next door neighbors own some property right across the street from where Kevorkian’s son lives in Michigan. Small world...
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