A Problem. Then Another Problem.
The First Brands Debacle, and the Proposed Minnesota Stifling of the Automotive Hobby
Every Carguyness article until now has had to do with motorsports. And man, we do love motorsports. But we’ve never seen that passion as the one and only, the exclusive component of our Carguyness. There is so much more to it than that.
True Carguyness comes in many forms. It might be knowing that the car you’re sitting next to at a red light is a ‘69 Road Runner as opposed to a ‘68. (Those are almost identical, but the ‘69 has rectangular side marker lights as opposed to the small circular lights on the ‘68.) Or maybe you’re out with family, and someone says, “Hey, look, it’s an old Ferrari!” and you say to yourself, “Nah, that’s an old Jensen Healey that just happens to be painted red.”
And for a lot of us, spending time maintaining an older car is often part of our shared Carguyness. Working on an old car we love doesn’t actually feel like work somehow.
But know this — the name Carguyess came to mind for this series while lying under a friend’s red 1962 Corvette Fuelie — the 360 hp bad boy — fuel line removed, and gas dripping on our face. And not wanting to be anywhere else in that moment.
If you are working on, collecting, driving an older vehicle that you adore, or perhaps just admiring a great car when you see one, this column is for you. Unfortunately, neither of the things we’re covering here are good news, but you need to be aware of them.
First up, the bankruptcy and fraud allegations at First Brands Group.
First Brands Group was founded in 2013, only twelve years before filing a massive bankruptcy case in the fall of 2025. From day one, FBG was focused on building an automotive aftermarket conglomerate.
Anyone reading this article has almost certainly purchased parts that originated with this company. Some of us have their products sitting on a shelf in the garage waiting for the day we need them. We do, right now in fact.
Within five years of opening their business, according to allegations from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, the Malaysian-born founder Patrick James (along with his brother Edward) began looting the company through fraudulent financing schemes.
Patrick James has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The case is currently ongoing.
In the press release at the time charges were filed, the SDNY US Attorney’s Office stated;
As alleged in the indictment, PATRICK JAMES and EDWARD JAMES perpetrated a yearslong fraud at First Brands, eventually bankrupting the global automotive company in September 2025. At the time of its bankruptcy, First Brands—a company that reported approximately $5 billion in net annual sales worldwide—declared just $12 million in cash in its corporate bank accounts and over $9 billion in liabilities. As a consequence of the defendants’ fraudulent schemes, FIRST BRANDS’ lenders and creditors now face billions in losses.
The same press release also served as the first public acknowledgement of a guilty plea from a third co-conspirator, Peter Andrew Brumbergs. Brumbergs, pursuant to his guilty plea, is cooperating with the DOJ in their investigation and prosecution of the case.
During the relatively short lifespan of First Brands, they acquired many previously independent companies, broken down here by category;
Brakes: Raybestos, Centric Parts, StopTech, International Brake Industries, and Carlson
Towing; Reese, Draw-Tite, Bulldog, Tekonsha, Fulton, Hopkins Universal, and Westphalia
Wiper blades: ANCO, TRICO, and Michelin
Filtration: FRAM, Luber-Finer, PetroClear
Pumps: Carter (water and fuel)
Spark plugs: Autolite
Lift supports: StrongArm
Lighting: Philips, Bargman
Generic aftermarket parts: Cardone
What does this mean for us Carguys?
First and foremost, consider the impact on the people who, in good faith, were employed at one of the First Brands Group plants. Estimates are that perhaps 3,500 people across Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Illinois, South Carolina, and California will eventually be laid off as this shitshow continues to unfold.
Just recently, on April 7th 2026, First Brands announced the complete shutdown of its rubber wiper facilities, with employees receiving WARN notices (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice) stating that shutdown will be complete by April 30th. That announcement, evidently made following approval from the bankruptcy judge, was because that arm of the business no longer had value, and could not be sold.
No more ANCO wipers. Or TRICO wipers. Or Michelin wipers.
Why? Because automakers, their key customers, had all bolted already.
But wait, there’s more.
Six of the major suppliers of consumer towing equipment were owned by First Brands Group. Presumably, at least some of those businesses, which are still operating under bankruptcy, will be sold off by the bankruptcy court and continue under some new corporate structure.
That’s good news for those of us who pull a trailer on occasion.
But not all is well in other places. Autolite, originally a Ford brand that we’ve all known for years, simply is no more. Same with Raybestos. And Fram.
We just checked the website for a huge online performance parts retailer that we know and love. We found;
For a ‘Raybestos’ search, we found only three items.
Rotors for a 2005-2013 Corvette, marked down almost 60%, only 2 left in stock
Rotor for a 2016-2022 Camaro, almost 60% off, only 1 left in stock — good luck selling that single rotor
Front pads for a 2003-2008 Corolla, almost 60% off
That’s it.
By contrast, searching on ‘PowerStop brake pads’ on that same site (pretty good pads for a daily driver) yielded 3,999 hits — basically pads, front and rear, for every make and model, domestic or imported, going back maybe 30 years or so.
All this nonsense, perpetrated on us by a couple of fraudsters (allegedly), has a general, high level impact on us.
With less competition in each of the auto aftermarket parts categories hit by the First Brands Group debacle, we can expect to pay more to remaining players to get the goods. Less competition inevitably leads to higher prices. Simple economics.
And less choice, which is never a good thing.
We should mention that the two James brothers each face eight charges of bank fraud, wire fraud, or money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
And Patrick, who DOJ is clearly treating as the ringleader, faces the additional charge of continuing a financial crimes enterprise, which carries a potential maximum sentence of life in prison.
Which, Carguys, we will of course pay for. Prisons are not cheap.
(There is a link at the end of this article to the DOJ press release. Fun, but tragic, read. If you scroll to its bottom, all the individual charges and their potential penalties are listed.)
And we would be remiss in not mentioning that these guys managed to do this by working the Private Credit markets. We’ve not going to get too deep in the weeds here, but after the financial crisis of 2008, when regulators tightened up capital requirements and reporting for banks, a whole slew of private lenders cropped up. Driven by investors wanting premium return on their investments, some of those lenders were (indeed, are) willing to provide risky high-return loans without the scrutiny and due diligence that a highly-regulated bank would apply.
That inevitably leads to higher default risk. And of course, there are many private credit firms out there that have suffered huge losses — many billions of dollars — from the First Brands nightmare.
This case is still unfolding at this writing. We will include updates from time to time in future Carguyness articles as developments warrant.
Whew. That takes care of our first problem.
It gets worse from here.
Minnesota HF 3865
Minnesota. Land of 10,000 lakes. From the air, the Gopher state looks like patches of dry land amongst scattered large mudpuddles, as far as the eye can see. We know. We grew up there. Forty years ago, we decided we had experienced temps of -40° (or worse) for absolutely the last time, and moved to a more temperate climate.
Minnesota has diabolical proposed legislation that severely limits what the owner of a classic car, collector car, hot rod, custom, kit car — basically anything except their new(ish) daily driver — can do with their ride.
Other than park it and look at it. I’ve read the bill, and find nothing that prevents anyone from looking at their fine automobile.
We reached out to Rep. Meg Luger-Nikolai, who authored and introduced this legislation into the 2025-2026 Minnesota legislative agenda.
Here is a verbatim copy of our request (except we corrected a misspelling of her name here, which was incorrect in the original email. For that we apologize.);
Dear Ms. Luger-Nikolai,
I write a column on Substack called Carguyness. As you might imagine, my readers are typically very involved in the automobile hobby.
I’m currently writing a column about HF 3865, which I gather you authored and introduced. I did my due diligence in an attempt to find your public comments on this bill, but have been unable to find anything.
For the record;
Can you tell us what is behind this legislative proposal?
What problem(s) would it solve?
Bottom line, what motivated you to author this proposal?
Thank you in advance for any information or comments you provide. Once it is published, I will send a link to my piece, after which you’ll be welcome to add anything you’d like to the public comments section of the article.
Best Regards,
Andrew Johnson
We work from the assumption there are no issues around, say, public safety, or taxpayer funds being misspent, or for that matter anything about the collector car hobby that impacts the average Minnesotan adversely at all, much less in any meaningful way.
So what could the problem be? The amount of fuel being spent on classics? That’s speculation, but it’s all we can come up as we await her response. If that is the motivation for this proposal, it simply does not hold up.
Not at all.
Here’s the thing; the classic and collector car community does not burn nearly the same amount of fuel as other recreational travel requires.
Take fishing, for example. All those lakes, Minnesotans fish a lot. Get on I-35 northbound from the Twin Cities on a summer Friday evening, and you’ll battle for position with tens of thousands of cars packed with camping and fishing gear. That’s called ‘Up North’ in the local jargon, just as headed to the Atlantic in New Jersey is called ‘Down the Shore’. It’s great. Been there, done that — both Up North and Down the Shore.
We don’t have hard data to support this conclusion, but we will state categorically that fishing-related fuel usage in the land of the Golden Gophers is far more than collector cars can possible burn through.
Moreover, fuel spent on recreational activities — other than fishing — is obviously huge by comparison. Driving (or flying — that burns fuel too, of course) to see Mickey in Orlando. Or to go skiing in Colorado. Or see the relatives in Oregon. Whatever.
It’s called freedom. Freedom. It’s the reason nobody has ever tried to severely limit fishing trips, or skiing holidays, or Disney trips, family visits, or any other form of recreation requiring fossil fuels but hurting nobody.
And frankly, we respect people’s freedoms to do those things. It’s their choice.
(As an aside, we note that Rep. Luger-Nikolai also introduced new legislation at almost exactly the same time as her restrictive automotive legislation, naming the toboggan the Minnesota State Sled. Cool (pun intended). We assume there are restrictions in the works for exactly how, when, and where the citizenry is allowed to use said toboggans.)
So we have a hard time swallowing Rep. Luger-Nikolai’s dismissal of our hobby, not based on good reasons, but on…well, shit. We don’t know why she would have done this.
We have not heard back from Rep. Luger-Nikolai, but in fairness it might be unreasonable to expect a reply. Her auto-reply states that her focus with emails is replying to her constituents, which we think is exactly how it should be.
Plus we just sent it to her a few hours ago. And there is significant national interest in this story, so she might be overwhelmed with requests for comment.
If, in fact, we do receive a response, we will post it as a new article immediately.
Moreover, she has been invited (in the email we sent, above) to comment on this column.
As are all of you, of course. Welcome to comment on what you read here.
Thank you, as always, for reading Carguyness! Our next missive will be out soon. Stay tuned.
Please, please, please — if you enjoyed this, share it out on social media, and with your friends. We’ve grown a lot in the last few months, and we’re working towards becoming a significant voice in automotive media.
We only have one link to share this time. But it’s a doozy.
SDNY DOJ press release (First Brands Group)