Death of an Oak : Thousand Oaks: Six cars in an auto dealership’s lot are crushed when a 300-year-old tree falls. The city had declared it healthy last year.

Howie Neftin has tried for eight years to get permission from city officials to chop down a 300-year-old oak tree at his Thousand Oaks auto dealership.

But when the 60-foot tree toppled over Sunday night, the timing couldn’t have been worse.

Six shiny new cars, including a four-wheel-drive Mitsubishi Montero that carried a sticker price of about $19,000, were crushed under the weight of the mighty oak. Four other vehicles were scratched by falling branches.

The city’s tree expert had proclaimed the oak healthy only a year ago, “but it sure looked rotted to me,” Neftin said Monday as he surveyed the damage.

Jon Greene, a tree trimmer hired to clean up the mess, confirmed that the oak’s root system had given way. It appeared healthy because some branches sprouted leaves after the last heavy rains in March.

But, he said, “most of the tree was dead. It couldn’t support the weight.”

Insurance will cover the estimated $200,000 in damage to Neftin’s Volvo, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen dealership.

But the oak was lost forever. Minutes after they arrived, Greene’s workers began the job of cutting branches of the once stately oak into firewood. Crews needed a large crane to remove the massive trunk.

Neftin’s fallen tree was one of an estimated 15,500 oaks that are protected from destruction by municipal ordinance in Thousand Oaks, officials said.

To remove a tree, residents must acquire a special permit. And until last month’s resignation of its oak code enforcement officer, the city employed a full-time planner whose sole job was to evaluate whether trees could be chopped down.

Doug Nickles, an assistant planner who also handles tree issues, said the city had no warning signs that the oak was about to fall.

“It’s difficult to analyze something when you can’t see inside of it, when you’re only dealing with external symptoms,” he said. “It’s a science, but there’s some guesswork as well.”

Neftin’s attempt to remove the tree dates back to 1983, when he requested and was denied permission to remove the oak during the construction of his Volvo dealership on Duesenberg Drive.

Unlike three other leafy oaks on his lot, the tree became sickly and some branches had to be removed, he said.

Neftin did not revive his request to cut down the oak until two years ago, when he began planning a new 9,000-square-foot showroom for Mitsubishi and Volkswagen cars.

City officials told Neftin that he would have to work around the trees rather than cut them down.

“We’ve been struggling for two years to come up with a plan that wouldn’t encroach on the oak trees,” he said. “The trees have caused me anxiety.”

Walt Eagan, a car lot manager who was on duty Sunday, said he and his wife were lucky that they were not under the tree when it toppled. Eagan was in the midst of closing the dealership when he heard a thunderous crash.

“I thought it was an earthquake,” he said. “It sounded like a Mack truck running over a bunch of cars.”

When he rushed outside, the area around the fallen oak was littered with twisted metal, glass and debris.

Earlier in the evening, customers were taking advantage of the long daylight hours to examine cars on the lot.

“An hour, or an hour-and-a-half earlier,” he said, “it could have been a disaster.”