April 28, 1997

Bullet-riddled door of Suburban in which rapper was killed to be sold

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - The bullet-riddled door of the rented GMC Suburban in which rapper Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down will be sold to raise money for charity.

Budget Rent A Car Beverly Hills rented the green 1997 Suburban to the Los Angeles production company FM Rocks. Notorious B.I.G. was sitting in the passenger seat March 9 when he was killed in a drive-by shooting.

The passenger door was the only part of the vehicle that was damaged.

"Everybody's telling me the door must have some value. We'd like to somehow find a way to sell the door to the highest bidder and then donate the money to charity," Budget co-owner Corky Rice said Monday.

When the rapper's posthumous album "Life After Death" became a national best-seller, it occurred to Rice and partner Jerry Seimons that they had a rare collectible on their hands.

"So many people say it has value. I'm trying to figure out how to turn this terrible incident into something good. If you put the money to good use, I don't think it's in bad taste," Rice said.

Rice said the Challenger Boys & Girls Club in South Central Los Angeles would be the beneficiaries of the money raised.

The value of the door wasn't known.

"I guess if I were to auction something like that, I'd put it out there with a very reasonable-looking estimate, say $3,000 to $4,000," said Michael Schwartz, director of entertainment memorabilia for the Butterfield & Butterfield action house.

Rice and Seimons are willing to sell the $38,000 Suburban as is with the bullet-pocked door in place, but they don't believe anyone would be interested.

"We haven't decided when or where to auction the door," Rice said. "We don't want to be tacky. We want to be in good taste. We don't want to make any profit at all."

Meantime, Death Row Records approached a Nevada resort to offer the bullet-riddled car in which rapper Tupac Shakur was killed last September in Las Vegas.

"We told them we weren't interested," said Aaron Cohn, spokesman for Primadonna Resorts in Primm, Nev. The resort paid $250,000 in 1988 for the bullet-riddled car in which Bonnie and Clyde Barrow were killed in a 1934 shootout.

The Shakur death car isn't the same, Cohen said.

"It's not a piece of American history the way the Bonnie and Clyde car is. But maybe in 20 years," he said.