As reported in the Chicago Tribune.
A man and his car--reunited after 36 years
Alan Poster calls it `a miracle.' His beloved 1968 Corvette, stolen in NYC in 1969, is snagged in a customs check before being shipped to Sweden.
By Michael Wilson
New York Times News Service
Published January 17, 2006
NEW YORK -- Alan Poster had been going through a rough time that winter. A 26-year-old guitar salesman, he had just divorced and moved from Queens to a studio in lower Manhattan. He bought himself a flashy treat that he could barely afford but could not resist: a blue Corvette.
Poster had owned the car for only two or three months when it was stolen from a parking garage. It was Jan. 22, 1969.
Years passed, and there were other cars, but he never forgot that '68 Corvette. "Probably the only car I've ever really loved," Poster, now 63, said last week. "That car and my new life started together."
The new life took him to California.
Turns out, the car followed.
Almost 37 years after the Corvette was stolen, Poster got a call last month that it had been recovered--days before it was supposed to be shipped to a buyer in Sweden. It was flagged during a Customs Service check of the vehicle identification number, sending two New York City detectives on a long-shot search through thousands of crime reports to connect the car to its first owner.
"We can call this a miracle," Poster said. "I stand in the shower going, `Why me?' Has anything like this ever happened to you?"
The car is to be returned to Poster on Tuesday at a news conference in Carson, Calif. It is silver now, with a red interior, and the engine was replaced at some point. Inexplicably, it has no transmission.
"Up until this moment, I thought it was chopped up and shipped away," said Poster, adding that he does not plan to drive it much. "I am going to be a collector of a Corvette."
One of 18,630 made that year
The 1968 Corvette represented a breakthrough for Chevrolet, created in the so-called Mako Shark design and ushering in the third generation of Corvettes. There were 18,630 Corvette convertibles made that year.
Poster paid $6,000 for the car, he said. "I didn't have a lot of money. I went out of a limb to get this thing. It was an egocentric muscle car that just came out. Back then, Corvette was hot as heck. That was an absolute fantasy of mine."
A 1968 Corvette in mint condition would be worth anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000 now, depending on the type of engine, according to Classic Corvettes and Convertibles in Tarpon Springs, Fla.
When his car was stolen, Poster had no insurance against theft because he couldn't afford it, he said. He went years without owning another car.
"It was a wake-up call," he said. "It made me believe you can't fall in love with things. It was kind of an interesting awakening."
The 1969 police report offered little hope that Poster was ever going to see his Corvette again.
It stated, in full: "Comp reports that at the t/p/o (time/place/occurrence) his car below was taken from the above premises in some unknown manner."
If it seemed--full as it was with police abbreviation--that the officer was in a hurry, there was good reason: With 1969 just 22 days old, Poster's was the 6,620th car reported stolen in New York City that year--one of more than 78,000 by year's end.
He eventually left New York for California, founding Ace Products Group, a company that makes cases for cameras and guitars, drums and other musical instruments. He settled in Petaluma, north of San Francisco. A single father with a 17-year-old daughter, he drives a Mercedes.
How the car was detected
The National Insurance Crime Bureau keeps a database of stolen vehicles, a database that is routinely checked before a vehicle is exported. Last Dec. 7, customs checked three cars being sold by a collector in Long Beach, Calif. One had been reported stolen in New York City on Jan. 22, 1969. But there was no owner's name, no address, not even a police precinct or borough.
The case was given to two detectives in the auto crimes division in Queens: Cliff Bieder, 44, and William Heiser, 41.
"It was the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack, that report," Heiser said. "One of the guys bet us a steak dinner we wouldn't find it."
With 44 years' experience between them, the detectives spent four days squinting at fine print on microfilm-- "Our eyes were hurting," Bieder said -- when Heiser found the report. He informed his partner. "I thought he was going to pass out," he said.
Finding Poster was easier. The detectives tracked him through the buyer of his last house in the New York metropolitan region, who said he lived in California. Bieder called him at his office.
"He said, `You had a car stolen in '69? A Corvette? What color was it?"' Poster recalled. "I said, `Blue.' He said, `We have your car."'
Less is known about what happened to the Corvette over the past 36 years than what didn't happen to it: Apparently no one ever tried to register or insure it, the detectives said, or the same flag from the database would have surfaced.
"It's almost like it was just put somewhere and then pulled out a year ago and put up for sale," he said. The man who was selling the car to the buyer in Sweden is not suspected of wrongdoing, the detectives said.
Auto thefts in New York have dropped sharply, to 17,875 last year, police said.
The detectives have been gloating over their success since the day they found the report. "We came back and said after the new year, we'd be eating steak dinner," Heiser said. "Somewhere nice. Not Sizzler."
The whole affair put Poster in a reflective mood.
"Things don't happen by accident," he said. "Things come back to me. I have no idea why. Maybe it all comes back to you at some point."
A man and his car--reunited after 36 years
Alan Poster calls it `a miracle.' His beloved 1968 Corvette, stolen in NYC in 1969, is snagged in a customs check before being shipped to Sweden.
By Michael Wilson
New York Times News Service
Published January 17, 2006
NEW YORK -- Alan Poster had been going through a rough time that winter. A 26-year-old guitar salesman, he had just divorced and moved from Queens to a studio in lower Manhattan. He bought himself a flashy treat that he could barely afford but could not resist: a blue Corvette.
Poster had owned the car for only two or three months when it was stolen from a parking garage. It was Jan. 22, 1969.
Years passed, and there were other cars, but he never forgot that '68 Corvette. "Probably the only car I've ever really loved," Poster, now 63, said last week. "That car and my new life started together."
The new life took him to California.
Turns out, the car followed.
Almost 37 years after the Corvette was stolen, Poster got a call last month that it had been recovered--days before it was supposed to be shipped to a buyer in Sweden. It was flagged during a Customs Service check of the vehicle identification number, sending two New York City detectives on a long-shot search through thousands of crime reports to connect the car to its first owner.
"We can call this a miracle," Poster said. "I stand in the shower going, `Why me?' Has anything like this ever happened to you?"
The car is to be returned to Poster on Tuesday at a news conference in Carson, Calif. It is silver now, with a red interior, and the engine was replaced at some point. Inexplicably, it has no transmission.
"Up until this moment, I thought it was chopped up and shipped away," said Poster, adding that he does not plan to drive it much. "I am going to be a collector of a Corvette."
One of 18,630 made that year
The 1968 Corvette represented a breakthrough for Chevrolet, created in the so-called Mako Shark design and ushering in the third generation of Corvettes. There were 18,630 Corvette convertibles made that year.
Poster paid $6,000 for the car, he said. "I didn't have a lot of money. I went out of a limb to get this thing. It was an egocentric muscle car that just came out. Back then, Corvette was hot as heck. That was an absolute fantasy of mine."
A 1968 Corvette in mint condition would be worth anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000 now, depending on the type of engine, according to Classic Corvettes and Convertibles in Tarpon Springs, Fla.
When his car was stolen, Poster had no insurance against theft because he couldn't afford it, he said. He went years without owning another car.
"It was a wake-up call," he said. "It made me believe you can't fall in love with things. It was kind of an interesting awakening."
The 1969 police report offered little hope that Poster was ever going to see his Corvette again.
It stated, in full: "Comp reports that at the t/p/o (time/place/occurrence) his car below was taken from the above premises in some unknown manner."
If it seemed--full as it was with police abbreviation--that the officer was in a hurry, there was good reason: With 1969 just 22 days old, Poster's was the 6,620th car reported stolen in New York City that year--one of more than 78,000 by year's end.
He eventually left New York for California, founding Ace Products Group, a company that makes cases for cameras and guitars, drums and other musical instruments. He settled in Petaluma, north of San Francisco. A single father with a 17-year-old daughter, he drives a Mercedes.
How the car was detected
The National Insurance Crime Bureau keeps a database of stolen vehicles, a database that is routinely checked before a vehicle is exported. Last Dec. 7, customs checked three cars being sold by a collector in Long Beach, Calif. One had been reported stolen in New York City on Jan. 22, 1969. But there was no owner's name, no address, not even a police precinct or borough.
The case was given to two detectives in the auto crimes division in Queens: Cliff Bieder, 44, and William Heiser, 41.
"It was the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack, that report," Heiser said. "One of the guys bet us a steak dinner we wouldn't find it."
With 44 years' experience between them, the detectives spent four days squinting at fine print on microfilm-- "Our eyes were hurting," Bieder said -- when Heiser found the report. He informed his partner. "I thought he was going to pass out," he said.
Finding Poster was easier. The detectives tracked him through the buyer of his last house in the New York metropolitan region, who said he lived in California. Bieder called him at his office.
"He said, `You had a car stolen in '69? A Corvette? What color was it?"' Poster recalled. "I said, `Blue.' He said, `We have your car."'
Less is known about what happened to the Corvette over the past 36 years than what didn't happen to it: Apparently no one ever tried to register or insure it, the detectives said, or the same flag from the database would have surfaced.
"It's almost like it was just put somewhere and then pulled out a year ago and put up for sale," he said. The man who was selling the car to the buyer in Sweden is not suspected of wrongdoing, the detectives said.
Auto thefts in New York have dropped sharply, to 17,875 last year, police said.
The detectives have been gloating over their success since the day they found the report. "We came back and said after the new year, we'd be eating steak dinner," Heiser said. "Somewhere nice. Not Sizzler."
The whole affair put Poster in a reflective mood.
"Things don't happen by accident," he said. "Things come back to me. I have no idea why. Maybe it all comes back to you at some point."
