hard to get titles on stolen cars....

 

I bought mine from the 2nd owner, so I talked plenty with him. I do need to track down the original owner.

 

Well said!

 

I just sent out a letter with pics to my car's second owner. As I had mentioned earlier in the thread, he left a maintenance log in the car and the dealership where I bought the car was quick to point it out to me. I was there looking at a couple of different cars, so the log definitely had some weight in my purchasing the car that I did. It showed me that the car had obviously been well cared for. He wrote down every fuel up and the mileage he got on each tank. Also all repairs that he had done to the car in the 11 years that he owned it.

There were a couple of invoices in the log and a couple of them had his address. I did a search on the net and found that he still lives at the same address as he did when I bought the car in 1996. I am hopeful that he will get back in touch with me. I also have the name of the original owner - thanks to the second owner writing it down in his log. I am working on that one now. The log has really been helpful, but I never really considered contacting the other two owners until I read this thread.

 

I contacted a previous owner on my 81. He gave me a lot of good info, was very happy to talk, shared a lot of stories. Real cool guy. Learned a lot about the owner before him. He bought it from a lady who's husband had died. Her husband loved the car and it was his 'dream' car. Glad he was finally able to get his dream car. I waited and when I finally called his wife, I was not able to track her down. Don't know if she died or what. I shouldn't have waited. But still, the contact I DID have with the previous owner was fantastic. He moved on to a C4, that's why he sold the car to the owner I bought it from.

Mark G

 

I found the original owner of my 70 LT-1 and the only thing I had to go on was he owned a tire store in 1970 in Atlanta. No name of him or the store. No address of the store. When I found him He said he had this.

 

Hmmm, I'd love to contact the original owner of mine, I am in Australia and she is in Torrance Cal, I guess you are not the person to ask to go knock on her door for me huh? LOL.

 

I met the last owner who did not keep maintenance records, was busy with other toys but kept the interior and exterior looking good. I don't know the age of many things on the car and therefore that makes it hard to estimate what needs doing when so to be sure it's sound and in sound shape I am doing many things just so that I know when it was done and can estimate life and next cycle for things. The car was repainted but not by the prior owner, immediate one, but the one before that. It's red like the car was originally but what color red? No one can tell me even to get touch up paint. So, I experimented until I found, luckily, an exact match and it wasn't red 72 that 1976 reds were but bright red from 1984 which matches perfectly and is different than the 76. Found it by matching touchup bottles then going to the maker and seeing what it referenced back to. So, would I like to talk to all former owners just from a mechanical point of view? You bet.

 

Calling a Corvettes previous owner can be like calling your wife or girlfriends ex boyfriend. Its a little touch and go at first but interesting to talk to. They all say the same thing... Good looking, fun to drive,kinda loud, a real head turner. But high maintenance and I just couldn't deal with the BS anymore.

 

You guys with the factory paperwork from previous owners are making me jealous

Anyway, the previous owner i spoke with last week (see my earlier post) sent me pictures as promised. He also sent me the heat deflector he took off the car back in the day.

Taken sometime between 1974-1982...




Taken sometime between 1982 and 1986...



When I bought the car in 2006...


Present...

 

Hi pws,
What a great series of pictures!!!!
It's funny how sometmes it's interesting to have people in the pictures too! But the peoples' appearances have aged now but the car still look great!
Thanks for posting them!
Regards,
Alan

I have a picture of me with my 71 taken the week I got the car. I was 27 but look like I'm 15. I don't look 15 anymore!!!! Car still looks the same.

 

yes it has happend arizona I believe it was a 66 stolen, not insured, car was not that old 1 to 2 yrs had been titled several times gone for 40 years plus and recovered a couple years ago.also a 69 stolen from new owner recovered in a Long Beach Cal. shipping container a couple years ago.Dont know who got the car owner or ins co?

 

looks better now than it did back then. I did like the wheels with the circle cut-outs.. but the sidepipes aren't my thing... looks great !.. it's amazing to get pics like that !

 

What he said!!!!!!!!!

Stay in tune....

 

The chances that you would contact a previous owner, and have them tell you that their car was stolen are pretty slim. There are some states that, back in the day, were a little loose on titles, and there were ways to "wash" cars through those states, but the average car theif didn't have the organization, contacts, knowledge, and patience among other things to go through all of that. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, as I am sure it did, but it's probably a miniscule number of the cars that were stolen in the last 40 years.

Based on nothing more than reading about it for the last 30 years or so, and messing with old used cars over that time, it would appear to me that most stolen cars met one of three fates:

1. Parted out.
2. Were the subject of a "VIN switch".
3. Were sent overseas.

The VIN switch was very easy for specialy shops back in the day when there were hundreds of thousands of C3s around. Guy A wrecks vette #5 and doesn't have comprehensive insurance. Guy A sells wrecked car to Shop X to recoup whatever he can. Guy B steals vette #6 which is nearly identical to vette #5, and brings it to Shop X. Shop X takes the VIN plate from vette #5, and places it on vette #6, then parts out what was formerly vette #5, sells the VIN switched vette and the shop and thief split the proceeds one way or another. An owner search won't turn this up definitively. Nobody is looking for the previous owner of vette #6, because no car presently exists with VIN #6. The person who owns what was originally vette #5 may get contacted by the owner of present day vette #5 (which is actually vette #6), and will tell a story of how he wrecked it in 1975 and sold it to the local shop etc. Contacting that shop is not likely going to net you a story of "Oh yeah, we VIN switched that one to be number....", more likely "Yup, we fixed her right up! Not nearly as bad as it looked at first, she was first rate when she rolled out of here!"

 

Great thread, lots of great stories. I tried to search the owner history of my stingray but the guy who I bought it from got it at a used car dealership. The used car dealership is still open but when I asked them about it they didn't keep records back that far but did tell me that they usually got cars from car auctions way back then (80's)... So they wouldn't know where it came from for sure. It felt like my stomach bottomed out when he said that, but during my restoration I found (what was left of) the tank sticker. That made me feel better.

 

I posted my story of how I tracked down all previous owners of my 70 LT-1 a few years ago. I have since determined the dealer from which it was purchased, which is no longer in business. Henderson Chev in Muscatine Iowa. In my opinion documentation can be faked relatively easy. Alot easier and cheaper than building a clone. IMHO. But nothing beats having all the previous owner history that can be traced backing it up.

Old CF thread


Bullshark

 

Bullshark, You have a very valid point of view. No doubt there are those who can fake documentation, but just having previous owners isn't the best way to go either. People pass away and then you no longer have "their word for it".

 

Thanks. It will look even better when i fix the hood. I keep saying i'm going to do it but end up spending money on other things. I'm at the point where it's starting to bug me.

Also, thanks to others who have posted their stories here too. Interesting stuff.

 

This thread inspired me. I contacted the few owners whose info I had about two weeks ago. I just got my first response today. The woman was a friend of the PO who said he had died several years ago. She also stated she wasn't aware he had owned a Corvette. No other responses yet...starting to feel disappointed.

Andy