Stolen car found 37 years later
CARSON, Calif. – With a grin, Alan Poster jumped into the driver’s seat of the Chevrolet Corvette that was stolen from him nearly 37 years ago. But he didn’t get far.
The gleaming silver convertible’s gas tank was still missing.
Nonetheless, the return of his 1968 sports car Tuesday in Carson, a community southwest of downtown Los Angeles, was a sweet moment for the Northern California man who long ago gave up hope he would ever see it again.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s absolutely beautiful,” said Poster, 63. “Now I’ve got to figure what it means – why this came back to me.”
That part of it is easy.
The stolen two-seater was discovered last month in a Sweden-bound shipping container at the Port of Los Angeles by customs and California Highway Patrol officers conducting a routine check of cars being exported. When its vehicle identification number was run through an insurance industry data base that lists cars stolen in this country since 1968, the Corvette popped up as having been swiped Jan. 22, 1969, in New York City.
New York police traced Poster to California. Then they phoned him with the startling news.
“I thought it was a joke when they called and asked if I had a car stolen in 1969 and then told me it had been recovered,” Poster said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and CHP officials returned the shark-shaped car to Poster in a ceremony staged behind a Carson export warehouse. They said it is the oldest of 68 stolen cars they have recovered over the last three years from containers destined to be shipped overseas.
“Both the Vette and Mr. Poster are somewhat older now, but I’m sure they have many more miles left in them,” said Kevin Weeks, the customs agency’s field operations director for Los Angeles.
Poster said the theft of his Corvette was just one of several blows he suffered in the late 1960s. His marriage had failed and the 23-year-old guitar salesman had spent about $5,900 on the newly released muscle car to perk himself up.
“It was the hottest thing going. I couldn’t afford it, but I bought it anyway. I couldn’t afford insurance. So it wasn’t insured,” he said. “I had it for about three months. After it was stolen, I didn’t have a car for years.”
Poster moved to California in 1988. He now owns a company that makes high-end covers for musical instruments. These days he drives a Mercedes.
The vintage Corvette looked in good shape, despite its missing fuel tank. It had been repainted silver from its original blue. Its original 327-cubic-inch engine had been replaced by a 454 big-block Chevy engine. Its odometer read 59,846 miles.
The car had been headed for Stockholm, where a Swedish car buff had purchased it from a U.S. collector for $10,000. CHP investigators so far have traced it back three owners, to 2001. The investigation is continuing.
Poster, a single father, said he plans to restore the car, repaint it blue and give it to his daughter.
Losing the car “was a lesson,” Poster said, about the futility of being enamored with material things.