Slick’s Garage in Palmetto brought owners TV fame. All that’s left is an online auction

In a matter of 12 months starting in August 2014, the former Slick’s Garage in Palmetto went from famous to infamous and its hard spiral into scandal would only continue from there.

The final chapter of what’s left of the Palmetto garage and the husband-and-wife owners, Jane Hunter and Christian “Slick” Humphrey, may be coming to an end as five of their Palmetto storage units are currently being sold off in a week-long online auction for nonpayment of rent.

The units are located at Simply Self Storage, 2100 U.S. Highway 301 N., and the online auction is being handled by storagetreasures.com.

Several other units are being auctioned as well and from the online photos, it appears only one of the units may have been directly tied to the former garage. Photos show it to be packed with parts for vintage vehicles.

Bidding began on Thursday and the auction remains active until noon on Feb. 27.

In August of 2014, the garage began being featured on the Discovery Channel in a show called “Highway to Sell,” with an emphasis on restoring classic cars that had fallen out of grace due to decades of neglect.

Fast forward to August of 2015: the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services shut Slick’s Garage down for improper paperwork that is required to be provided to customers.

Hunter and Humphrey, by that time, had largely abandoned their Palmetto shop as they were setting up a new location in Miami. The couple had long been a thorn in the side of Palmetto officials and leaving their shop looking more like a junkyard didn’t help.

They also left in the dark a few customers who had paid for services that were not being rendered as the couple headed south to celebrate their newfound fame.

A few months later, on Jan. 7, 2016, the Palmetto Police Department executed a search warrant on the all but abandoned property at 923 Fifth St. W., after 15 complaints were filed by people looking for their cars and parts. Detectives were also looking for business records related to a fraud investigation.

During the same week, a customer filed a lawsuit against Slick’s related to a 1966 Plymouth Sport Fury he had brought into Slick’s Garage for work in August of 2014. Two and a half years later, the vehicle was still at the garage though payment had been made.

He had brought the car in whole. He found it in parts.

Another customer had to file court documents to retrieve two 1959 Cadillacs.

In April of 2016, the garage was completely abandoned. Hunter and Humphrey were long gone and the property was purchased by an investment company. A potential new buyer for the property expressed interest in reopening the site as a garage, but the city was having none of it.

Officials hastily enacted a six-month moratorium on new automotive-related businesses in downtown, as they started a long-term effort to develop design strategies for the area.

It was an effective strategy.

The potential buyer lost interest and the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency eventually purchased the property as part of a larger land buy for just under $1 million in March of 2019 . The city declared in May it would build a new parking garage on the site.

The Miami shop continues to operate, according to Slick’s Garage LLC Facebook page, though their website link is non functional.

Humphrey and Hunter could not be reached for comment.

Palmetto Police Chief Scott Tyler said his department sent results of their investigation of potential customer fraud to the state attorney’s office, which declined to prosecute.

“We never did a physical arrest,” Tyler said. “We sent that information to the state and after speaking to the victims, they declined to file charges. They concluded it was too close to a civil dispute and there is a gray area there between criminal and civil.”

Scott said from his understanding, most of the customers ended up working out a deal with Slick’s. As to whether any of the parts being auctioned off are potentially among the items referenced in the complaints, Scott said the state’s decision means his department no longer is involved.

“There’s no grounds we have at this point to investigate,” he said.

This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 10:18 AM.