Corvette stolen in 1970 ..Happy Ending!!!

[Angrybird 12]

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20...rned-to-TN-man
Corvette stolen in 1970 is returned to TN man
Classic muscle car now worth $65,000
By Kate Howard • THE TENNESSEAN • December 6, 2009

The 1965 Corvette was worth maybe $2,200 when a thief stole it off Lower Broadway 39 years ago. The rightful owner will drive it back home this week, worth 30 times what he lost, after it was recovered nearly four decades later in Arizona.



Chance Mayfield parked the convertible, Nassau blue with a white top, on Lower Broadway and went to the honky-tonks in November 1970. It was a great night at the Broadway Barn, he said, until he walked out to the parking lot and the like-new muscle car was gone.
"That ruined my night," Mayfield said with a chuckle.

The pain of losing the spotless car was already long forgotten when he got a phone call this summer from a detective who said his car had been found. Once he got his mind around what car he was talking about, Mayfield thought someone was playing a prank on him.
After four or five years passed with no sign of the car, Mayfield figured he'd never see it again. But dreams, he said, do come true, and on his 68th birthday he got word that court cases with the most recent owner had been resolved.

The completely restored Corvette, which looks like it spent years as part of various collectors' stock, is now his to take home. He's taking a trailer out to Arizona and he'll bring it home to Putnam County — about two hours east of Nashville — next week.
The car was discovered when a collector, who bought the car for about $65,000, took it to the department of motor vehicles for an inspection. The inspector ran the serial number through the National Insurance Claims Bureau, and it came up stolen from 1970.

Of all the things that seem unbelievable about this case — that nobody checked the car against the insurance database before this year, or that the car looks better than ever — most amazing to the detectives involved was that the original 1970 police report was still sitting in an archive box. Mayfield's insurance had lapsed just before the theft, so he never got a paid claim for it. The Metro police clear their stolen car cases of the national crime database every six years or so. That piece of paper was enough to determine the car belonged to Mayfield.
"It helped me a lot because it helped me verify Mr. Mayfield's story," said Detective Mark Wagner of the Scottsdale, Ariz., police department. "We couldn't believe it still existed.
"When I called Nashville to tell him we found this car and the detective stopped laughing, he said he'd check the archive, and there it was."

Oldest case solved
Metro car theft detective William Dillon took the call, and says it's definitely the oldest case they've resolved. Detectives tracked the car back to California and then to New Jersey in 2000, and the business that sold it has since closed.
"We'll never figure out who stole it in the very beginning," Dillon said. "It's just an old theft that will actually come to a conclusion."
An old theft with a lesson: "Just because you put your car (behind) you as stolen, don't think we won't recover it sometime," Dillon said.

[FxsX24]

lucky bastard

[Mr_Draco]

I feel sorry for the guy who just bought the car.

[porcupinekiller]

Originally Posted by FxsX24

lucky bastard

Happy endings are awesome.

[Xmicro_SS]

If he received and insurance settlement, the car belongs to THE INSURANCE COMPANY!!

Wait until he gets that call.

[AlSuwaidi]

Originally Posted by Xmicro_SS

If he received and insurance settlement, the car belongs to THE INSURANCE COMPANY!!

Wait until he gets that call.

it says he didnt as it 'lapsed' just before the ar got stolen...

[Angrybird 12]

Originally Posted by Xmicro_SS

If he received and insurance settlement, the car belongs to THE INSURANCE COMPANY!!

Wait until he gets that call.

He never received anything from the insurance company...
But I do wonder then how the car got listed in the insurance database...

[2010 SSRS]

nice

[drivingincamaro]

Nice, im glad he got it back


i don't think the Font is big enough

[Xanthos]

Originally Posted by drivingincamaro

Nice, im glad he got it back


i don't think the Font is big enough

Thats what I was going to say... I had to set my browser zoom to 25% in order to read it.

PLEASE lower the font size, for the good of humanity.
- X

[CamaroSpike23]

Originally Posted by Skyman 08

He never received anything from the insurance company...
But I do wonder then how the car got listed in the insurance database...

the ins might have still filed it from the police report, but never paid out on it.

who knows.

but I want to know what the guy who bought it for $65k got out of this deal.

I'd be pissed if I dropped 65k on a car just to have the courts take it away with nothing in return.

[Sir Nuke]

Originally Posted by Xmicro_SS

If he received and insurance settlement, the car belongs to THE INSURANCE COMPANY!!

Wait until he gets that call.

his insurance had lapsed as stated in the artical....so its his.

[toesuf94]

There have been quite a few of these lately! Here are two...

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/11/09/v...ition-to-alls/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181988,00.html

[Xmicro_SS]

Originally Posted by AlSuwaidi

it says he didnt as it 'lapsed' just before the ar got stolen...

I Missed that............interesting, but too convenient, something seems shady, but us New Yorkers feel that way about everything!