Anyone have a car stolen/recovered?

[gassersgarage]

In 73', my daily driver was a 55' Chevy 210 2 dr. It had a stroked 327, 11:1 pistons, Sig Erson cam, Z28 highrise with a 780 Holley. Trans was a Muncie 4spd with a 4:56 rear end. I was an Art Director for a printing company at that time. One day, I heard a car peeling out down the street and thought, "That's funny, it sounds like my car". I didn't check because I had an alarm (one of those school bell types). After work, I went outside and my car was gone.
About 4 months later, I was notified that my car was in police impound. I went to look and found a shell. No engine, trans, rear end, interior, bumpers, wheels/tires, headlights/taillights. Even the pedals. along with the clutch bell crank was gone. To restore my car, I would have to buy another complete car so I sold the shell to my Boss's son, he had a 55' 150. In those days, they didn't have collector car insurance so I only had PL/PD.

In 86', I restored an old county truck which was a 69' Chevy C30 stepside. I used it to tow my 62' Nova to the track. It was Corvette white with blacked out grill and trim. The motor was a 350, balanced with a mild Comp Cam, Edelbrock highrise, 650 Holley and Hooker headers. Truck 4 spd with compound low. I came home and found the truck gone. To this day, it has never been found.

In 89', I had a 67' VW bug. Shaved, one-piece windows, euro bumpers, selectadrop front end with disc brakes and a 1600 dual port. Wheels were Centerlines. Color was Corvette white with stock black interior. I moved to one of the safest areas in the South Bay. Within 2 weeks, my bug was stolen from my driveway and never recovered.

Hanging is too good for these crooks......

 

[Mike P]

Around 71 I was working in a body shop in St Louis (doing the mechanical stuff....frame straightening, alignments, wiring etc).

We got a pretty fair amount of theft recovery vehicles......I really learned to appreciate a professional theif ......they didn't hack a vehicle up near as bad as an amature .

Worst that happened to me was a couple of vehicles broken into to steal the stereo. One has neatly taken out.....the other ripped apart. Wouldn't have mattered in either case I would have put the guy in the hospital if I had caught them.

 

[Tripper]

Tripper Jr

My son had a Z-car & had parked it outside his place on the street B4 bringing it behind the fence. He heard a car start up & told his wife... that sounds just my car. He went to the window just in time to see his car going down the street. It was recovered about a week later in a neighborhood way out in the suburbs. The cops said kids in that neighborhood stole cars in the city for fun & ditched them right down the street from where they live so they wouldn't have far to walk home. I think they took his stereo & his iPod.

BoB

 

[donsrods]

In about 1990 my Son Dan owned a Cal look VW bug. He had owned it since he was 14, and had lots of work and money in it. The car had shaved door handles, so you needed a remote to get in, and he owned such a sensitive alarm that garbage trucks would set it off going by.

He was a full time musician at the time, and one night he came home at about 2:30 from playing and parked it in our driveway. At about 5Am my then wife, who was a nurse, was leaving for work, and noticed the door to the VW open. She ran in and got us, and when we got there, the entire interior was stripped. He had a stereo system worth about $ 5,000.00 and it was all gone. They were such pros that they didn't rip stuff like wiring out, they actually removed each screw from the terminal blocks and gently removed them. Dan had done the install, and he said it would have taken him a week to remove all the stuff that they did in 2 and 1/2 hours. They even had his Recarro bucket seats loose, but I guess she scared them off, because they left them, and a flashlight was laying on the floor, still lit.

Long story short, I tracked down who they were. They pawned a distinctive flute that was stolen too, and I got their names and addresses. I went to the house, but they had moved a few days before. I went to U Haul, and found that they had rented a truck to move to Cookesville, Tn. I had the address in Cookesville, and the Chief of Police there was ready to arrest them. However, our local DA refused to extradite them. He said it would cost the County more money than it was worth. That's why these scumbags keep getting away with this stuff, nothing happens to them.

Oh, as for recovered cars, check out this story:


www.ktvu.com/news/13548479/detail.html?qs=1;bp=t


Don

 

[Tripper]

No one's immune!

There have also been several hi-profile mega$$$ show cars stolen lately. I'm sorry but if I had a 250K-500K show car... that sucker would have a GPS system in it... only $1K. Lo-jack is CHEAP insurance!

BoB

 

[donsrods]

Ya' know, here's the goofy thing about it. If your car is stolen, and found, they impound it. YOU are responsible for storage and towing fees, and if you don't pay, they come after you. Whats with that???

My Son had a Honda stolen from a local body shop. He left it parked outside overnight after he pickup his S10 that they had just painted. It got stolen, and the idiots broke an axle while driving it, so they left it. My Son finally found out where it was, and by then the storage fees (which are super inflated anyway) were so high, he had to sign over the title to clear the thing up. If he hadn't done that, they were going to come after him for the money.

I'm telling you, the laws are all backwards.

Don

 

[FlatBroke]

I had a K5 Blazer stolen about 10 yrs ago. Finally got it back after about 6 months. Like Don said, the laws are all backward. They don't protect us, they protect the criminals.

OK,
You guys talked me in to an alarm system. A rattlesnake under the seat and a pitt bull in the bed.

 

[gassersgarage]

Ya' know, here's the goofy thing about it. If your car is stolen, and found, they impound it. YOU are responsible for storage and towing fees, and if you don't pay, they come after you. Whats with that???



Don

In California, Law Enforcement must notify you immediately, if your car is recovered. If not, you can appeal the tow and storage fees (Stitman Hearing). If it is found that Law Enforcement failed to notify you in a timely manner, they are responsible for the fees. That's why, on stolen reports and computer printouts, the victim's phone number is always listed. Often times, they will call you if the car is found local and is drivable.

 

[Tripper]

Anti theft device!!!

A rattlesnake under the seat

Flatster,
I suggest u contact The Rattler & see if he's runnin' a special anytime soon!!!

BoB

 

[gassersgarage]

This is a side note regarding stolen stereos. A guy with a new Mercedes came home and parked his car in the garage. He closed the door and went inside for 15 mins. When he went into the garage, he found that his car doors were open, the stereo missing, but the garage door was still down. There was no way to open the garage door without the opener.
The victim had just had his car serviced at a local Mercedes dealer. He had left his garage door opener in the car with his registration. Long story short, someone at the Dealership had copied his garage door code. It was in/out in 15 mins. That same week, 4 other cars had their stereo stolen in the same neighborhood, all Mercedes, all had been serviced at the same Dealer. In one case, the Dealer van had been spotted in the neighborhood.
It turns out that the stolen stereo are sent to Korea, re-packaged and sold as new. You may be buying your own stereo back.

 

[Gastrick]

Thank goodness I've never had a car stolen. I've had parts stolen, but never a car. I never recovered any of the parts.

 

[john56h]

Personally, I've been lucky enough to not suffer through the ordeals of a stolen vehicle....but I have a few stories.

Buddy of mine had a real nice 87 Monte Carlo SS. It got damaged on the quarter panel and he brought it to a family friend's body shop. After it was repaired, the shop owner's crack-head son stole the car out of the shop and drove it all around trying to "fence" it for a few bucks to buy more crack. He got no takers for the car, but someone did buy the radio and T-tops. Then this "wizard" drives it back to a lot near the body shop and torches the car, I guess to hide finger prints. There was nothing but charred metal to recover.

Back in the late 80's I used to work at a salvage yard that stores and auctions cars for insurance companies. Many of the wrecks and theft recovered cars came from New York City. The stripped cars were amazing...many with equally amazing stories. A few that stand out:

A new red Pontiac Trans-Am, completely stripped except for four donut spare tires and the entire running gear. Supposedly, the strippers drove the car into a NYC park, pulled off the steering wheel and walked away. There were no fenders, doors, decklid, T-tops, seats, interior, glass, dashboard, lights, etc...just what was necessary to drive it from the chop-shop to the park where it was dumped. There was a milk crate for the theif to sit on.

A new white Iroc-Z came in on the truck...completely stripped. No wheels, engine, trans, rearend, body panels, glass, interior, etc.... We check the vin # and it is not the right car. The office girls make some calls and find out that the owner had dropped his brand new car off at the dealer in Manhattan at 7am for the 1000 mile service. The salvage company's truck picked it up in the Bronx at about 10:30 am and had assumed it was the car he was supposed to pickup (which as it turns out was behind the garage not out by the curb). The truck driver unloaded it in the salvage yard about noon and the owner found out his new car was stripped about 12:30. What I was impressed with is that between 7:00 and 10:30 the car went missing from the dealer, driven across the city, stripped of every bolt on part and dumped in 3-1/2 hours.

Another time, truck driver drops off three cars (according to his trip tickets). I check in two cars and can't find the third. I ask the driver where the third car is...he says "look in the trunk of the other cars". The third "car" consisted of a chunk of firewall with a master cylinder and a VIN plate. That is all that was recovered of that car.

One good thing....I used to find some nice tools in the stripped out cars. They worked in such a hurry, they'd lose some tools.

 

[gassersgarage]

A friend of mine works a multi-jurisdictional auto theft task force in and around L.A. County. They had a lo-jack hit in south central L.A.. They followed the signal to a house in a run down neighborhood but could not find the car. the trail ended in an alley behind the house. They looked through the fence but did not see any cars. They staked out the house and watched. In the middle of the night, a car drove down the alley and stopped behind the house where they had lost the signal. Lo and behold, several guys came out of the house, lifted the rear fence and the car drove into the back yard. Then an entire wall of the house opened and the car drove in. The house was a chop shop. The rear wall was hinged at the top and was opened with hydralics.

Another case was where a kid was stopped for looking too young to drive. It was a Toyota Corolla with BC (Mexico) plates. The car was stolen and the kid admitted to belonging to an auto theft ring that specialized in Toyotas. Each member had a master key. They would steal plates in Mexico, steal Toyotas in L.A., switch plates and drive them across the border. Police can't run Mexico plates which is how the scam worked.

 

[BruceR&C]

Never had the misfortune of having a vehicle stolen but, John's stories remind me of what happened to a nighbor of mine in NY.

My neighbor was a NYC cop that commuted from the Island to his precinct in Manhatten. One day his Caddy broke down on the Belt Parkway & he got out to see what was wrong. As he's looking under the hood, he feels a tap on his shoulder and some guy says, 'OK buddy, you got the front I'll take the back.' Needless to say twas an easy collar for my neighbor.

 

[LordMaximo]

I use to live in CA back in the late 70's.
I found a 57 Chevy delivery for $1k in Memphis Tenn, before I was sent out to CA. I had a few bucks in the wagon before it made the voyage out there. It was less then 3 months before the rig was kyped, and then found down off the free way in El Cajone CA, which was about an hours drive from my area.
The *******s cleaned house, it was found on blocks in a blaze. The shell was a total waste and non-salvagable. Really sucked having a bad ass right burnt to the ground.

And just two nights ago, some punk ass POS busted into my daily ride and ripped me off. They left all the change in the center consol, but made off with more then $600 worth of perscription glasses and my perscription sun glasses. What a friggen waste, my drivers and back up eyes for work. Now I am out of my spare eyes for a while.

Maximo