FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

[Edward M.]

I just heard from the owner that had his black on black 65 FI couple stolen at Indy has been recovered.

Gary, the owner and I have been in touch since the car was stolen 3 months or so ago.

The car was found in a self serve storage unit 4 blocks away from where it was stolen.

The car has been damaged as the thieves started to pull the car apart, but the car is complete, and all of the valuable parts are still on it. Apparently the biggest item missing is the cooling fan clutch.

The car is now in the locked custody of the insurance company, and Gary and his wife will be retrieving the car tomorrow.

The wiring harness and front upper surround have received some damage, but Gary has already made arrangements to get the car into the appropriate restoration shops to get her back together like she was before.

The car will soon be back with her owner of 47 years.

I will save the additional details for Gary to reveal as he goes over the car and tells his story, but I have to share this one point.

The car was found because the thieves stopped paying the storage fee on the storage unit. That forced the owners of the storage units to open the unit, and by state law a law enforcement officer must be present when the lock is cut off.

I am sure that was a big surprise to everyone, especially once the VIN number was checked.

Gary and I wondered why the thieves would stop paying for the unit. If there is any justice in the world, it is because the thieves are now in jail for something else, and could not pay the fee. Naturally they used a fake name to rent the unit.

Congratulation to Gary and his wife. Their baby will soon be home.

[Leif A.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

Terrific news!! Extremely fortunate for Gary and his car. Very happy for him.

[Michael J.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

Great news and happy ending to a sad story. Hope they get back to enjoying it soon.

[Roger W.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

What a good story. Fortunatly, most criminals are not to bright.

[Ed H.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

Ed, the reason they were probably in jail somewhere else was because local LE booked them for "VIOLATION OF THE STUPID ACT", if they go down for the theft of a beautiful Black on Black Corvette that should be life without the benefit of conjugal visits, just MHO.

[Adam B.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

That is great news! Thanks for sharing!

[Roy S.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

Indeed great news, congratulations on the baby coming home, hopefully she will be better than before when all is done.

[Tim G.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

That is great news, Roy. Now the car has an interesting background story to go with it.

[Kenneth B.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

GREAT NEWS. Glad they didn't remove the VIN & trim tag.

[Roy S.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

I think this thing went viral so quick with all the discussion forums, that the thief's panicked, put it in a storage facility paid the minimum to keep it hidden until they could clear their tracks. It takes several months for these things to be where a storage facility can cut a lock off. Sounds to me like they paid the minimum took what they could quickly and bolted. If not that storage facility will most likely have cameras showing them coming back to the unit to do their stripping.

[Edward M.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

Roy;

That is as good of a guess as any. Not sure how that happened, but it turns out to be a very fortunate thing for the owner of the car.

Maybe all of the publicity did cause the thieves to lock it up and keep it locked up until things cooled down.

I think the storage facility was also in Illinois. I don't know about Illinois, but in Alabama they owner's of the storage unit only have to wait 30 days after non-payment before they can legally force entry, plus the usual "must notify by certified mail", etc.

It looks like Illinois has a 60 day requirement, plus of course the usual "must notify my certified mail", etc. Most storage rental units are on a month to month basis.

Whatever the reasons, it worked out for the owner of the car.

[John D.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

For once a happy ending. I bet Gary and his wife are thrilled. I spoke with him about this matter and he felt really bad. John

[Darryl D.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

I posted this on the Corvette forum and don't know how many here read that forum so This is a copy and paste of a similar story that some of you find interesting.

Congratulations to Gary and family. I am sure they are thrilled about this and were sick from the loss.

The thieves were likely drug heads and may have been in jail for other charges which stopped them from proceeding with stripping the car and paying the storage bill.

I had a very similar thing happen to me over 30 years ago The thieves that stole my car were meth heads.

Here is the story of my incident for anyone that is interested and as you will see in the end there was some poetic justice for me I have posted this in the past on this site.

Back in about 1986 or so my 1966 Mossport green, 427/390, A/C. PS, PB, PW, teak, tele, side pipe, KO equipped car was stolen. I only had the minimum insurance on it so it was a total loss to me.Two weeks later on a Saturday night I got a call from the police that they had found the car and would like for me to come ID it and pick it up. I had visions of it being in the AZ. desert burnt up.They directed me to a self storage facility that was only a few miles from my house. The manager of the storage facility had some knowledge of old cars and thought that the guys that rented the space did not look like a match to someone that would own a car like this so he called the police. It was set up so that when the returned to the storage unit he would call the police which he did. The police swopped down on these three guys in the middle of removing the engine from the car. When I arrived the engine was hanging from the engine hoist over the front of the car. The three thieves were sitting on the ground against the storage unit and handcuffed. They had also taken needle nose pliers to both the V.I.N. and trim tags and ripped them off and they were still laying on the floor of the car. After I went to court and they were imprisoned I spoke to the arresting officer to get a special report required by the people that were going to make repo tags for me. He asked if I had seen the newspaper article about one of the thieves, which I had not. So he tells me that one of the guys that got 40 years (previously convicted felon) attempted escape when they were disposing of some old clothing lockers at the prison by hiding in one waiting to be picked up as garbage. Little did he know it was picked up by a compactor truck. The last thing he heard was GGGRRRRRR of the hydraulic ram as he was being crushed to death.

[James G.]

Re: FOUND - 1965 black FI coupe stolen at Indy

PLEASE have the owner contact me and I will add the car to the 65 FI SURVAY.