Mustang owner reunited with his stolen car ...

No finders keepers

In this case the there is no mention of an insurance company, if they paid the claim they would be the owner. Titles get turned in when the insurance companies make a total payout.

There is no statute of limitations for a theft.

There is no 'finders keepers, losers weapers', either.

If the guy wants his Mustang back he should get it back, his choice.

 

It's very obvious that the man it was stolen from and the lady that had it feel very different about it than you do. According to the article, even she wants to do the "right" thing and get it back to him. After all, she did get to enjoy a car that was never rightfully hers for 38 years. I don't see the big deal here.

 

I disagree.
I think he's a petty old man and should just let her have it to sell. their opinions on the matter don't mean jack to me.

SHE didn't steal it.
Her father didn't steal it.
She is out of whatever money she was expecting from this sale be it a Carribean cruise or gastric bypass surgery or a fat donation to PeTA or maybe a similar first car for her grand daughter/son.

I think she should get some sort of compensation and that opinion won't change. I feel really bad for her and I don't feel anything but contempt for the geezer.

 

Sad

You think a reward is in order?

Geezer? you don't even know the guy. For all we know he could be a decorated veteran. At the very least he is someones husband, brother, father, grandfather, mentor, neighbor, or all around good guy. Don't hate on him because he had the unfortunate luck to have a car stolen in 1970.

 

There is a principle in law that says that ignorance is no excuse. If in 1970, this woman had been pulled over in another state, after buying the car and the VIN came up reported stolen, she would have been arrested. After it all shook out, her father would have been arrested for buying and receiving stolen property, the dealer would have also, and maybe the the guy who stole the car would have been found. The girl would have had charges dropped against her after her father was arrested and her father may have been set free after the dealer arrested, but all of them would have been told by the judge, "That ignorance is no excuse. You all received stolen property and that is against the law."

I'm sorry the lady is not going to get compensated for her loss, but that's life, the law, and that's tough. Just because a mistake has gone unchecked for 38 years does not mean that it is no longer correctable. Taking the woman's side is giving in to situational ethics and foregoing or ignoring definite right and wrongs.

 

The only way I would feel different about this would be if the article had stated the original owner had collected insurance. As stated by someone else, if that had been the case the car would belong to the insurance company that paid the claim. This was an unfortunate circumstance for all involved except fro the crook that stole the car and made off with the loot. I think it would be a great story if some detective wanted a little fame from this and decided to back track and actually find the crook. Never happen but it would be great! Sure, I feel sorry for the lady but the simple fact is the car still belongs to the owner that paid good money for it when it was first bought.

 

This is why it is important to make sure the numbers match before you buy something. The paper dosen't answer all the questions. If I were her I would find out if the insurance had covered it. If it had it would legally be theirs. Then she could deal with them. And insurance was mandatory back in the 60's.

 

The paintjob, enginework and original price her father paid was bad money then?

She deserves compensation in some form, it was her car for 38 years and again, it isn't like SHE stole it. The old man SHOULD let bygones be bygones.
Thats what I'd do at least.

 

As best as I know, insurance to cover your own property has never been required. It has been mandatory for you to have liability to cover the other guy's losses, But I can't recall a time where you were required to cover your own property UNLESS the vehicle was financed and the lender required it (which they do). Another rarity for cars for purchased in the 60's is that loans very rarely lasted longer than 30 months. A 36 month loan was considered long and a 48 month loan was considered desperate. So, it is possible that even if he initially had property insurance, he didn't keep it once he got the car paid for. In 1970 nobody was expecting the '60's cars to be so loved and worth so much.

 

That's fine if that's what you would do and I highly commend you for it, but don't come down on this old man without knowing every facet of every detail since 1970. You know, that old man may have some sentimental attachment to that car that is equal to or greater than the lady's.

 

Same story, different characters but better, the Mustang post reminded me of this story from a while back.


Stolen Corvette Recovered After 37 Years


Owner Reunited With Classic Car


Jan. 17 2006
Alan Poster's Corvette was a brand new 1968 blue-on-blue classic driving machine when it vanished 37 years ago. Now he's been reunited with his former dream car. The Corvette was stolen from a New York garage on Jan. 22, 1969. In November the car was identified as stolen as it was being loaded onto a container ship bound for Sweden, said U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Mike Fleming.The car had recently been purchased for $10,000 by a man in Sweden who was not aware it had been stolen nearly four decades earlier, Fleming said. Since Poster's insurance at the time did not cover the car's theft and he was never compensated, he is entitled to get it back. "This is a miracle," Poster said when law enforcement officials told him that his car had been recovered. He saw his car today for the first time in 37 years at a media briefing held at a Customs and Border Patrol warehouse in Carson, Calif. "He's very excited about it," Fleming said, adding that Poster had since moved to Petaluma, Calif., and had given up hope long ago of seeing the car again.

A Strange Journey

Poster had owned the car only for two-and-a-half months when it was stolen from the garage -- one of nearly 80,000 stolen cars in New York City that year. But he'd already managed to have some fun with his hot wheels when he was a 26-year-old guitar salesman. "I remember driving it through the tunnel in Manhattan and some guy wanted to race me," he said, "and I knew he was dirt." The New York Police Department played a big role in the Corvette's recovery. After the Customs and Border Patrol contacted the department, Det. William Heiser scoured the department's records room and dug in to the coldest stolen car case of his career. "We went through about 5,000 records over the course of four days here to locate this report," Heiser said, which led them to Poster. When detectives called, Poster didn't believe it was actually the NYPD. "He was pretty surprised," Det. Cliff Bieder said. "I think he thought it was a joke at first." No one knows where the Corvette has been all this time. It was apparently never registered or insured, or the vehicle identification number would have revealed it had been stolen. The car is now silver with a red interior, according to Customs and Border Patrol. The original 327-cubic-inch engine has been replaced by a 454 big block Chevy engine. The car has a stolen automatic transmission that wasn't introduced until the mid-1980s, and the gas tank is missing. The car's classic design, however, has survived. Today the car that cost $6,000 in 1968 is a classic. Similar models are auctioned on Web sites for $50,000 to $100,000. But Poster said his Corvette is not for sale. "I plan to restore it and keep it," he said.
He also plans to give it to another eager young driver with the same name -- his teenage daughter.
ABC News' Neal Karlinsky and Reuters contributed to this report

 

Wrong!

I learned this after having everything I had stolen from a rental car in Florida on the way to the airport. I was leaving a conference/vacation and a buddy and I stopped in Ft. Lauderdale at the beach to have lunch.
Thieves broke into the rental car, popped the trunk and removed all my luggage including clothes, laptop computer, digital camera, SCUBA gear and the same for my buddy and locked everything back up hoping that we wouldn't notice.

After the police report and getting back home late(they took my plane tix too!), I began calling pawn shops in the Ft. Lauderdale and surrounding areas. The detective informed me that there was a statute as a result of the pawn shop owners getting together years earlier filing a lawsuit against police for siezing stolen goods and returning them to rightful owners. Pawn shop owners created a login process for registering goods and sellers that allowed police access to monitor what they bought. Part of the agreement was that police could only tell theft victims where there goods had shown up, and victims had the rights to 'buy' their treasures back when notified.

It sucks.

Seth

 

I have been robbed, burglarized too many times. If I find that you have something that was stolen from me, I am going to take it back. I dont care what anyone says or any law says. In the old days we did not have insurance like we do now. It was not a law to have insurance on vehicles. My stuff is my stuff that I have worked very hard to pay for, if you have it after it has been stolen from me, then YOU have a problem. I have never had anything returned to me that has been stolen. Of the approximate dollar amount of $10.000 over the years that has been stolen from me, I have gotten a $168.00 check from the insurance company for tools stolen in 1995. After I installed video, bars on the windows and sound in my garage for around 200 bucks I was in the hole. This is my opinion and I do respect all opinons expressed in this matter.
Dan

 

I got my first car in 1971, a black and white 55 ford crown victoria for 350.00 at age 14, I drove it all thru high sckool,every date, to work , the main thing I wanted in a divorce, it has been parked several times ,is currantly going thru a restoration in my garage. If I were to find out it was stolen it would be hard,I mean real hard to do the right thing, I wouldn't want to miss heaven over it but it would sure leave a big hole in this ol boy's world!

 

If you buy a stolen product then you are in possession of stolen goods. The law states that your ignorance is no excuse. The stolen artical must be returned to the rightful owner.