Posted on 02/22/2014 7:44:26 AM PST by JoeProBono
LAKEPORT, Calif., A California man whose non-working 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air was stolen 30 years ago said it is back home with significant upgrades including a new engine.
Ian "Skip" Wilson, 65, a retired mechanic in Lake County, said the engine and transmission of the classic car were removed by thieves when it was stolen in 1983 and hadn't been replaced when it was stolen again the following year, the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat reported Friday.
However, the car was in significantly better condition when it was recovered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection two weeks ago from a Southern California shipping container bound for Australia. The California Highway Patrol contacted Wilson and arranged to have it shipped back to him.
He said the car now sports a 350-horsepower V-8 engine and has only 9 miles on the rebuilt odometer.
"Somebody put a whole lot of work and money into that car," Wilson said. "It was all disassembled and put back."
Wilson said he found out the car has gone through several owners since it was stolen, and he feels bad for the seller and buyer, who likely did not know it was stolen property. He said he does not know how the previous owners were able to register a car that had been reported stolen.
"I imagine somebody in Australia must be awful upset," he said.
If you have some reason to believe the deal is not on the up and up, that is different. I have not seen any indication that the "improver" who spent all the money restoring this vehicle was not a good faith purchaser.
Thanks for pointing that out. It could well be that California DMV is just that incompetent.
Hmmm... that Gas Monkey guy has a way of getting vehicles cheap, rebuilding and selling to foreign “investors”. Just sayin’....
How in the bleep did a clear title get passed along to several buyers without DMV flagging the VIN as stolen?Wilson said he found out the car has gone through several owners since it was stolen, and he feels bad for the seller and buyer, who likely did not know it was stolen property.
I investigated to see if a ’57 vehicle even had a VIN number - and the answer turns up that the VIN started in 1954, but wasn’t standardized until after ’57 so each manufacturer used its own format. Still, it seems like an open question. The real question seems to be, what is the owner doing now to keep the car from being stolen again?
http://apps.dmv.ca.gov/images/vr/regcard_w_arrow2.jpg
You have sent in registration forms that did not include the VIN?
I never have.
Where I grew up, people found out they had bought a stolen car fairly frequently when they went to register it.
The guy who fixed this car up lost it while trying to ship it to another continent.
I suspect he knew it would be discovered if he tried to register it.
I have a feeling that 50 years from now there’ll be more 100 year old cars still running than 50 year old cars.
Cars cost twice as much as cars made in the 1960’s adjusted for inflation, and last half as long.
Why pay? They really aren’t that much more difficult. They have a few more expensive parts but back in the day so did those older engines.
There was not much I couldn’t fix on my old ‘68 firebird that a nail file and a screwdriver couldn’t handle.
The worst thing that most “modern” cars the engine is sideways so the high wear parts (and the stupid timing belt) are jammed up against the left wheel well leaving no room to work at all. So discouraging. I could change the water pump, timing chain, alternator and power steering pump by myself in about two hours and cost maybe $200 in parts on my ‘68 Firebird. That same amount of work would cost 2,000 dollars or more and I would be without a car for probably 2 days. It is ridiculous.
“Thieves had dismantled the car right there in full view of my neighbors.”
Damn, I hope you moved after that. Bad neighbors are worse than no neighbors at all.
That is not even close to what I said. If you want to address what I said, let me know.
If you had read the article (not the linked article, but the part excerpted on this site) you would have seen this:
Wilson said he found out the car has gone through several owners since it was stolen, and he feels bad for the seller and buyer, who likely did not know it was stolen property.
Your assumptions are very, very unlikely to be the true state of affairs. Much more likely is that the current holder of the (bad) title bought from someone who was also holding what appeared to be clean title, then sent that title to DMV and got a new title. Even the legal owner, the guy who it was stolen from, feels bad for that guy. Somewhere along the way, probably decades ago, the stolen car obtained a new title that any purchaser would not know was for a stolen car. And anyone after that who bought it would have no way to know it was stolen if DMV didn't tell them.
Don't know why you are so eager to pin it on a guy who was far down the chain from the original thief, but I feel for a guy who put so much effort into restoring an old beauty, only to learn that, due to the state's incompetence, it was a stolen car. I hope he is able to at least get something under an "unjust enrichment" theory.
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