Had a car stolen from in front of the shop last night
 

Relax, it wasn't my SVX.

We had this old rusty Camaro sitting out in front of the shop that belongs to my boss, doesn't look like much, but it is solid underneath and it is a numbers matching 1970-1/2 RS split bumper, which is pretty desirable. Last night, it was stolen.

About 9:30PM last night, my boss gets a call from a friend that lives up the road from the shop, asking if he sold the Camaro, which he hadn't. He told him that he was pretty sure he just saw it go by on a ramp truck. At first they thought it was just one that looked sorta similar, but they were both headed to the shop to make sure.

The friend gets to the shop first, calls my boss and says the Camaro is gone and he is turning around to try to find where the ramp truck is going. My boss is still 10 minutes from the shop, he calls the police, answers a bunch of questions, the friend calls while he is talking to the cops, but they won't let him put them on hold so he misses the call. The friend calls again, my boss hung up on the cops and answered it.

The friend said he had the ramp truck blocked in at a convenience store about 5 miles from the shop. My boss calls the cops back, tells them where the car is and heads for the store as fast as he can. He gets there first, argues with the truck driver, trying to find out who told him to take the car, the guy said he only had a nickname and a vague description, big bald black guy that goes by "G", yeah that is helpful. My boss sees the towing sheet on the clipboard in the truck and demands he give it to him,the driver refuses. Finally, the girlfriend of the driver who was in the truck gave my boss the carbon copy of the towing sheet, which the driver was not happy about.

There wasn't an exact street address, just directions to some place in downtown Charlotte, which is apparently a shop or warehouse of some form.

Cops finally show up, take down all of the information they can and ask my boss what he wants to do with the car, the driver is more than willing to take it back to the shop. My boss told him to have the car taken to his house instead, which he planned on doing anyway.

So, the car is safe and sound at my boss's house and he got a free tow out of the deal.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...o/100_0777.jpg
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...o/100_0776.jpg

Re: Had a car stolen from in front of the shop last night
 

well atleast you got it back, that could be a very nice car and worth some money with the numbers matching

Re: Had a car stolen from in front of the shop last night
 

Wow, that is some crazy stuff.

Car thieves are fairly equivalent to horse thieves... in the past, they would have been shot.

I am all about law and order, but sometimes law and order need to be quick and decisive.

Re: Had a car stolen from in front of the shop last night
 

Right now, it isn't worth a whole lot, maybe $2000-3000. Restored, it is a $30,000-50,000 car.

The only reason it looks bad is because it was a victim of a bad laquer repaint 30 years ago and it sat in kudzu for about 10 years. The floors and everything underneath is great, it is just the outside that looks bad. It was parked in 1982 when the harmonic balance slipped, it had 114,000 miles on it.

Re: Had a car stolen from in front of the shop last night
 

if the police would be successful, they would track where the address is this was going off to, and go scope that place out. Probably a chop shop near.....and they could cut this kind of activity down..

but, like usual, that would require work.

glad your car is safe again.

Re: Had a car stolen from in front of the shop last night
 

My boss, the friend that caught the truck and the towing company owner are doing more than the police are, the police report says the case is closed, that is going to change though. There is some security camera footage of the potential thief coming to the towing company to pay for the tow, you can see the silver Mercedes that the truck driver was describing, no tag number though.

The thing is, the guy originally said the car was in Belmont, which is very close to Charlotte, the towing company is in Charlotte, the car was supposed to be delivered to an address on the same side of the city as the towing company so it would be a cheap tow. The car was actually in Kannapolis, which is much further, and it was going to the other side of Charlotte, so the guy in the silver Mercedes bribed the driver to get out cheaper, maybe $150 instead of $400. We are pretty sure the name and address given to the towing company was a fake.

The driver did say he has done other tows for the guy before, though the owner doesn't have any records of them, so they were side jobs. We don't think the driver is really connected in any way except being used by the actual thief, he probably was just doing what he was paid to do and didn't ask questions. Right now, the driver is suspended, not because he is suspected of anything, but because the owner wasn't too happy about getting a call from the police in the middle of the night.

Re: Had a car stolen from in front of the shop last night
 

Ahh a story with a happy ending. That car deserves some love and it will shine.
My brother (original owner) has a 70½ Camaro with original paint and about 40,000 miles in his garage. It's his baby and he won't sell it for any price. A guy showed up every second weekend for a whole summer offering him more money each time and each time he refused.