Man To Be Reunited With Car Stolen 37 Years Ago

Published: January 17, 2006 | 3297th good news item since 2003

A man whose Corvette was stolen 37 years ago in New York City is scheduled to be reunited Tuesday with his long-lost sports car, which turned up at the Port of Long Beach.

Alan Poster’s 1968 Corvette was a year old when it was taken in 1969. Poster, who lived in New York City at the time, now resides in Petaluma in Northern California.

When an unsuspecting buyer tried to have the car shipped through the Port of Long Beach to Sweden, a routine check by the California Highway Patrol showed it was stolen, said Mike Fleming of the Department of Homeland Security.

The car was seized and the New York Police Department was notified, he said.

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

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

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

The car originally was painted blue with the same color interior, but is now silver with a red interior, he said.

The Corvette is in generally good condition, though the gasoline tank is missing and the car has a transmission that the CHP determined was stolen, Fleming said.

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

Published in Found
See also: www.nbc4.tv