BASS LAKE — Another area homeowner was shocked and saddened recently when he walked up to the detached garage at his Bass Lake cabin to find the lock cut, now dropped on the ground, garage still latched closed. He knew this was trouble, and when Chad Gregerson opened the garage door, what he didn’t see confirmed the bad news: his fully restored 1983 Yamaha G-1 golf cart was gone.
The garage was completely ransacked, and the Gregersons are still figuring out what’s missing. The lids were off all the storage containers, and items including tools, boating accessories, paint, gas cans, and cooler were stolen. Ten bags of wood chips for the barbeque were missing, and life vests were dumped out of plastic bins that were then filled with firewood. Like other recent area crimes, it looked like thieves were planning to return for more.
The worst, though, is the loss of their “Green Machine.”
Chad and Denise have owned their cabin at Bass Lake for about five years, and their unit has grown in that time to include two daughters, age three months and three years. Chad says he doesn’t even want to tell his older daughter that the fun-on-four-wheels family getaround they fondly call the Green Machine is gone.
To say the Green Machine is beloved is not an overstatement. It was basically a rescue.
“We brought it back from the dead,” says Chad.
The “G-1” designation means it’s a first-generation vehicle, and when Chad first came upon it the Yamaha golf cart was, literally, in the weeds. He poured a lot into in, from money to sweat, and the project was worth it. The Green Machine is well-known in the neighborhood, and a few years ago was featured in the Bass Lake Christmas Parade of Lights.
The Green Machine is a fully restored 1983 Yamaha G-1 Golf Cart, VIN: J24-001159. It’s got custom white seats with green trim, says Chad, and it’s lifted with 22x11x10 tires on ten-inch rims.
With custom suspension and custom orange bumpers and lights with a tow hitch, a wood GT steering wheel and an “Oooga” horn, the Green Machine is not to be missed.
Anyone with information leading to the return of the Green Machine is asked to please contact the Madera County Sheriff’s Office Oakhurst substation at (559) 658-2555 and refer to Case #16-0311.
