cool story bout gettin back a stolen car

i was talking to my buddies dad mike the other day and he told me this story-
in the late 70's mike bought a beat up 39' cadillac. it barely ran, but it was cheap, so he drove home to start on restoring it.
he had it for a year or so, and one day he comes home from work to discover that his cadillac was gone!
he calls the police and makes a report, but they never find anything.
now fast forward to 1998- again he comes home from work and finds a message on his answering machine. its the palmdale police department and they want him to calll them back, so he calls and the officer he speaks with starts asking him questions about if he ever owned a cadillac and what year, and whatnot, and then tells him they found his cadillac- over 20 years later!!!
heres the best part of the story- he goes to the palmdale police impound yard to retrieve his old cad, expecting to see the same rusty primered barely running car, and instead finds a juiced up, slammed to the ground cherry example of a 39 cadillac lowrider! purple and gold, with giant metalflakes, plush interior suited for a pimp chromed out , rebuilt original engine and the whole works!
apperantly the car was seized in a drug bust, i saw the car and its one of the most ridculously beautiful cars i ever seen!
hes actually happy the car got stolen now. if he kept it he says we woulda never finished it and probably sold it by now

just thought it was a cool story that i would share with all yall's

 

Every now and then the good guys win one....
Great story.

 

Ha, funny thing is the car was probably traded 50 times during that 10 years and the inept DMV never picked up on it being stolen.

Nice turnout for your buddy.

 

haha really, not to mention he paid $800 for it ,put no money into it, and now he has a car worth an easy $50,000 -i love it!

 

I'm sure that's exactly what happened. Just been selling it, and saying they lost the ***le.
The Palmdale Police must have someone on board who knows their cars.

 

Probably not. It's standard practice with drug busts to verify ownership of every car on the property. Tweakers and stolen cars tend to go hand in hand. What's really shocking is somebody had the time to pull paper records and track it down.

 

I'd like to see what it looks like!!!

 

Yea I'm like Bad Bob let's see some pictures if possible. thats a fantastic story!

 

a guy at work sold a high end jap bike to a guy who paid with a fake cashiers check. they recovered the bike when it was illegaly parked and they towed it in. it had a bunch of custom work done to by the thief!

 

I heard of an early Vette that was stolen. Over the course of several decades, the Vette had slowly been restored. It was at an auction when the NTSB decided to do a vin check, for hidden vins. The original owner got the car back in restored condition.

Another guy had his 68-69 Chevelle stolen. It was bone stock. A few years later, it was recovered with carb, manifold, headers, performance trans, etc.....

Usually, in these cases, there was a vin switch so the DMV doesn't catch it. However, amateur crooks never replace the hidden vin.

I'm still waiting for my VW bug and 69' Chevy 1 ton that were stolen years ago....LOL

 

My cousin had a Bad 33 ford that he used to race all the time... pissed someone off, they stole it and torched it into 6 pieces.... He got the body back and put it all back together.... got his brothers together and paid the guy that stole it a visit, he nearly died that night!!

 

this thread needs to be posted with the threads where people are *****ing that they can't register thier car using a ***le that is for a different car. how do you think these stolen cars get registered??

 

Interesting thought!!!

 

I met a guy I didn't really know at his house one day to go Jeeping in the CO high country. We started talking hot rods like all real men do. He mentioned this 1959 Corvette he had that was near perfect and had been in storage for years. It was his brothers car and he wouldn't sell it ever because his bro was KIA in Vietnam. I have heard this story a hundred times and called ********. His response was to take me out to one of those cheesy pop-up tent car storage things behind his very modest house. He said he was trying to get enough money to build a real garage someday. He whipped open the flap and there it was, a real dual-quad Vette in perfect original condition, layered in dust, red and white. I almost went to my knees. Guess what? His brother's name is on the wall. I checked. Not stolen but for whatever reason this thread reminded me of that.

 

Does the guy still own the Cad?

 

Back in high school a friend had an `87 Cutl*** with T-Tops and a 307 that his parents bought him.....it was stolen from in front of his house a month before he got his license.

Two years later they get a call saying that they found his car.This thing was bone stock mind you,and they go to pick it up find BRAND NEW Cragar S/S`s front and rear,BRAND NEW Futura RWL tires (295`s in back!),BRAND NEW Flowmaster duals,a very nice stereo,new shocks,new brakes,fresh tune-up,etc,etc...the list goes on.They swapped the dash vin #,scratched off the door tag,and swapped the column out.....but the *****s still had his plates on it from 2 years prior.

A cop pulled the guy over and asked this african american gentleman why the car was registered to a white kid in Burbank,IL.......needless to say..."Yes Officer,that is exactly how the car looked when they stole it".

He drove the **** out of it for a year till the motor started knocking,then ripped the car apart to "restore it" and it eventually found its way to the junkyard.The thing had not a spot of rust on it.

I think the crook took much better care of it!

 

I had a friend of mine visit me back in the early 90's. He was teaching and was dirt poor with about $17 total to his name. I only had about $8, so he seemed pretty well off to me at the time. Anyway, he had somehow worked out a deal with his father to take over the payments on his reasonably new Porsche 911 Carrera Cabrio. which had a year or so left and then he could keep it. So, he was somehow making the payments. Definitely the nicest thing he had ever owned by far. But, he decided to drive it up from LA to SF for a visit and he was crashing at my place. We go out drinking one night and get back home and sleep it off. I wake up to some kind of racket way too early in the morning - probably around 9:30a. It was him yelling some kind of **** that his car had been stolen. He got up for some reason and looked out the window and it wasn't where we had parked it right outside. ****, it was stolen and we didn't hear a thing even though it was just right there. They must have pushed it down the hill a ways before they started it. Anyway, it was gone. Call the cops. They didn't even come, but took some info. over the phone and said they would look for it, but basically said to pretty much forget about it. He was pretty bummed to say the least. So, he calls his father to give him the bad news and to get the insurance info., tag and VIN #'s. Fortunately it was insured and he got the #'s. But come to find out is was just leased, not being purchased as his father had lead him to believe. He realized his father was even more of an *** than he previously had thought he was and had scammed him and the car wasn't going to be his when the payments were done (unless he could some how make the gigantic buyout payment they always have). He was pretty bummed about his father lying to him. They apparently didn't get along too well before that and definitely not afterwards. Then to add insult to injury, the insurance company started investigating him (and me to some extent) to see if he was trying to scam them, checking into his background, financial accounts, etc. He didn't even have enough money to get back to LA. He had to borrow some for a train ride back and I gave him a couple of my last bucks. Kind of a sad weekend all around and I don't think the car was ever found, but as it was, it was the leasing companies anyway. Kind of the opposite version of the original thread story.

 

I hate thieves of any description with a p***ion...especially the bums who stole that Nomad in the other post today.
It's almost impossible to register stolen cars in OZ, but the crooks have a nasty habit of cloning cars that already exist. so this story of the Porker hits home. back in the 80's I sold a biz and had a few grand to waste...I bought a 911 Carrera Turbo for $50000. Which was cheap then,two weeks after I bought it I got an offer from a dealer who said he would give me $100,000 for it. SOLD!.
2 years later I get a visit from the Australian Federal police,it turns out my porker had been stolen in Los Angeles about 7 years previously and shipped with several others to Australia.

 

cool story,how bout some pictures

 

I've posted this about "abandoned cars in the country", but a guy here had a Packard stolen from his place in the country in the 70's. He died, but about 10 years ago they got a call from the police in one of the northern states asking about the car. Someone had bought the car, was transfering the the ***le and it redflagged as stolen. When they recovered the car it had been completely restored.
Another happy ending and something else to think about when it comes to cars without ***les.
Larry T

 

i was talking to a friend that had his 87' grand national stolen right after he had just dropped $11k in it redoing the car. 2 years later gets a call from the local 5-O that they found his car. guess a cop that is into buicks stopped the car and looked at the vin# and knew it wasn't a 82' regal. he bought it back from insurance for $700. according to the speedometer the car only had 300 more miles on it and the dude that got caught in it had $5k in reciepts for suspenion upgrades, exhaust and various parts. he figured he would never see the car again but got lucky

 

Didn't that get turned into a country song a few years back? Not that I listen to new country, but a song about a corvette is just too good to p*** through the radio dial.

 

Private Malone by David Ball

 

I had a bike that got stolen from in front of my parents house. No theft of course. Got another ride and went on with life. A year later, I get the call.
Go get the bike, changed the oil (kid had filled it all the way up), and it ran just fine. Had been rubbed on and made better except the oil thing!

 

Yep lets see some pictures.

 

And just think of all the poor ****s who bought these ****ped out cars at swapmeets, drop a ton of work and cash into them to restore /hotrod them - only to have them seized by the police when they went to sell/register them and returned the the original owner...

Beware what you buy.

 

back in high school (1964) a buddy of mine had a clean 6 stick 55 chevy 2 dr post stolen in front of his house 2 years later gets a call form hudson co. that they find his car and to come get it out of impound lot he calls and they tell him that it cost 75.00 to get it he ask if it was in go shape the guy said yes so thinking it was worth about 300.00 he pay it and sell the car will when he gets to the inpound yard he see a lime green 55 post with chome rims a 327 -4speed and a black ****on &tuff gut the guy said see your lucky they didn,t start to cut it up yet the only guy i knew that made out when his car got rip off

 

There was a story going around locally years ago- late eighties'- and it's strictly friend-of-a-friend so I can't say whether it was true or not, but it was told to me as if it were.

Local guy has his '82 Trans Am stolen. Files a report, but like most of us, figures the car's gone-gone, or as happens all too often up here, they'll find the burned hulk after the kids that swiped it for a joyride decided to "destroy the evidence".

A year-plus later, a customer walks in to the fellow's business- an automotive upholstery shop. Has a car he'd like redone- new carpets, seats recovered, etc. The car is, of course, an '82 Trans Am.

The owner recognizes it immediately, but doesn't let on. Has the customer fill out the usual paperwork- you know, name, address, phone number...

Has the customer leave a down payment...

After he's gone, the owner calls the cops, gives them the whole story. They take a copy of the work order, run the car's numbers and verify that yes, it's his car, etc.

An arrangement is made so that the owner will complete the work, call the customer, and when the customer arrives to pick it up, they'll have an officer on hand to nab the guy.

So the owner mods the interior, calls the customer, customer swings by, likes the work, hands over the rest of the payment, signs the reciept... and is then arrested.

The car is not impounded as evidence, they simply hand the keys back to the owner- who also got to keep the payment. Customer had priors, of course.

'Course, on the other end of the spectrum, there's a more verifiable tale- I saw the before and after photos. Local fellow had a high-end side-by-side shotgun. I forget the exact brand, but it was on par with Holland & Holland or Purdy- a $10,000 to $25,000 handcrafted heirloom.

It was stolen during a home break-in, and due to it's value, the police figured that was the target item the crook(s) came for.

Nope. The gun was recovered just a few months later, found in a car that had been used in a convenience store robbery.

It had been sawed off.

The police would not return it, as the barrels were illegally short, and it may have been used in an earlier crime (than the store robbery.) The original owner said that even if he'd gotten the action and what was left of the stock back- they'd spraypainted it black, too- just the stock would have cost over $5K to replace. The barrels? If you have to ask, you can't afford it...

Doc.

 

I have heard stories about all of the "barn find" 50s & 60s cars that have been showing up lately after being returned from Mexico. Cars from the midwest & southwest that were swiped & driven south of the border are now being sent back to the States for resale. Since a lot of cars were sold on Bill of Sale, there was no way to track the vehicle.
***les & VINs were not tracked on computer back then, so there really is no record of a lot of these cars today.
Anyone else heard this tale? It explains the sudden surge in "barn find" cars in the lst couple of years.

 

Great story. Good example "what goes around comes around".Thiefs should get two days in the electric chair.!!