When Erica Schrull woke up last month, she didn’t expect to find what she did. After a night of rain in her California neighborhood, she found her beloved Scat Pack Challenger crushed under a huge tree that came down around 5am that morning.

“This car was such a huge piece of my life,” she told Mopar Connection. “I wanted to move to California for years so it’s the reason I got here… I’ve had three Challengers; but all the while I was working up to this one. I couldn’t wait to have my dream car. It really was everything I could have wanted too; the Scat Pack is an amazing car,” says Erica.

Erica was planning on moving to California shortly after taking delivery of the car so she decided to lease it rather than finance so she would have a low enough monthly payment to carry her through the next three years while she established herself in California with a roof over her head and a solid job.

After the tree crushed the Scat Pack, she found herself wondering what the next step would be. After contacting the insurance company and Chrysler, she was in disbelief when she was told because the car was a lease and she did not technically own the car, she wouldn’t be getting anything back from the claim. Even though she had the full intention of keeping the car after the lease was up, she was out every penny she had invested with her down payment and ten months of payments; around $12,000.

Thankfully there is a positive side to now report with this story. After numerous phone calls to Chrysler and the insurance company and telling various different people at both companies what happened and her story, she was told some good news. Originally, she was told not to expect a penny back from the insurance company. However, this turned out not to be the case for Erica.

Thankfully, after the insurance company made their decision on the value of the car; it turned out there was a good amount of overage left over and after hearing her story, Chrysler was willing to send her the overage amount. While it doesn’t equal the full amount she lost thanks to Mother Nature, she does get about half of it back.

To help Erica with the rental car and possible legal costs, one of her friend’s set up a GoFundMe to help and so far, they have raised $920 towards the $3,000 goal! If you’d like to donate, please check out HERE. We hope everything works out in the end for Erica and we can’t wait to see her back in another Challenger in the future!

Erica Schrull's Scat Pack from Rhea Rhea on Vimeo.