Orange County Choppers Took a $10 Million Loss, HQ Sold for Mere Pennies

We have all heard the stories about how Orange County Choppers, the shop that the hit Discovery reality series, American Chopper, ended up going too big too soon, biting off more than they could chew, and eventually getting lost in their ways, going under and forcing the crew to liquidate all of their assets. Sure, you can look at a story like this and think that it’s too bad that a company that would end up be that successful could end up going under and losing money so quickly, but I think that sometimes, we just don’t realize how hard they really swung for the fences and how little they would end up getting in return when it came time to liquidate.

This time, we take a look at the Orange County Choppers headquarters, a building that reportedly cost $13 million to put together. It was reported that the OCC crew was in the building until 2011 before they were forced to surrender it to their financier due to inadequate funds, doing everything they could to avoid foreclosure. However, early last year, the building would be put up for auction to move on to yet another owner and when you look at what it cost to put this place together, I would venture to say that the new owner got themselves a pretty good deal.

At more than a $10 million discount, the building would transfer hands for just $2.275-million. If you told the crew that this 61,000 square foot building would sell for mere pennies on the dollar less than a decade later than the original 2008 build date, they probably would probably laugh you right out of their sight. However, all these years later, we see how much of a depreciating asset it has really become. Sometimes, all that it takes is a touch of over-ambition alongside some money mismanagement to get yourself tangled up in a mess like this one.