Car Stolen 37 Years Ago To Be Reunited With Owner

CBC News ^ | Jan 17, 2006

[nuconvert]

Car Stolen 37 Years Ago To Be Reunited With Owner

Man Reunited With Corvette Stolen 37 Years Ago

(CBS) CARSON, Calif. A man Tuesday is expected to be reunited with his 1968 Corvette that was stolen from him 37 years ago in New York City.

Alan Poster's 1968 Corvette was stolen from him in New York after only a year of owning it.

Poster, who lived in New York City at the time of the theft, now resides in Petaluma in Northern California.

The now-classic sports car recently turned up at the Port of Long Beach.

An apparently unsuspecting buyer tried to have the car shipped through the Port of Long Beach to Stockholm, Sweden, when a routine check by the California Highway Patrol found it to be stolen, said Mike Fleming of the Department of Homeland Security.

Authorities seized the car and notified the New York Police Department was notified, Fleming said.

"They spent four days going through their files and found there was a report that the car was stolen in 1969," Fleming said yesterday. "Then the owner was tracked down."

Representatives of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the CHP and the National Insurance Crime Bureau will return the car to Poster during a news conference in Carson.

"To quote Mr. Poster, ‘It's a miracle,"' Fleming said. "The odds against finding it so many years afterward were phenomenal."

The Vette, original blue inside and out, now wears silver paint with a red interior, he said.

The car is reported to be overall in good condition, however, the gasoline tank is missing and the car has a stolen transmission, Fleming said.

No arrests have been made in connection with the original theft or the stolen transmission, Fleming said.

[Doogle]

something smells fishy about this.....

[ahayes]

I hope it has appreciated significantly.

[1Old Pro]

The Vette, original blue inside and out, now wears silver paint with a red interior, he said.

They ruined it.

[tallhappy]

The hero? An anonymous drudge worker who inputted duly the old stolen car records in to the computer.

[quantim]

Yep, and the insurance company will probably want their money back in today's dollars.

[68skylark]

Yeah, I'm glad someone put old stolen car data into their database -- it's paid off.

[1Old Pro]

The RUSH sit-in reads FR, talking about this now.

[nuconvert]

Happy to oblige :~ )

[nuconvert]

"They ruined it."

Yup

[Fierce Allegiance]

Hardly. Old news: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1556946/posts

[tallhappy]

The RUSH sit-in reads FR

Rush, as well, reads FR.

[Between the Lines]

Representatives of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the CHP and the National Insurance Crime Bureau will return the car to Poster

Shouldn't they be returning the car to Poster's insurance company he had at the time it was stolen? They paid for it.

[Between the Lines]

[nuconvert]

Did he have insurance?

[nuconvert]

Nice

[Lx]

Except for the fact that it has an L88 hood and it's not a convertable AND it's a '68, it looks just like my '69.

Funny to see the windshield wiper door is screwed up on this one as well as mine.

[Lx]

They pimped it out. I wonder if it still has the VIN sticker on the left door jam that lists the correct color paint and interior color.

No gas tank? That's where the build sticker usually is, I wonder if that's why it is missing??

[Between the Lines]

Being that the car was less than a year old when it was stolen, you would think that he did have insurance.

[OldFriend]

So maybe there's hope that my stolen car will be returned. It's only 25 years.