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Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found.....41 years later

Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

It will be interesting to see how this plays out legally. I always feel for the present owner in these cases who unwittingly buys a stolen car as they end up being the big loser. I am curious who holds title to this one. If insurance paid out, hasn't the owner essentially given title over to the insurance company? I would assume in normal cases if a car is recovered the owner and insurance work something out. In the case of a car that went UP $100k in value I wonder if the insurance company wouldn't seek to keep it.
 
Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

Something I never understood is some DMV's will purge their files after a few years and the vehicles that are stolen simply disappear when their tag is ran. Not sure about the VIN's but I "think" it goes with the rest of the heap. I hope the owner, if alive, gets the car back. It's gonna be interesting.
 
Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

"Horseplay" said:
It will be interesting to see how this plays out legally. I always feel for the present owner in these cases who unwittingly buys a stolen car as they end up being the big loser. I am curious who holds title to this one. If insurance paid out, hasn't the owner essentially given title over to the insurance company? I would assume in normal cases if a car is recovered the owner and insurance work something out. In the case of a car that went UP $100k in value I wonder if the insurance company wouldn't seek to keep it.
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I'm always suspicious of the current owner, especially if they've "owned" the car for a long time. Who knows if they really were an innocent third party. If so, they should have done their due diligence.

Frank
 
Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

No way the current owner didn't notice a discrepancy that the car was a 68 with 65 registration. You don't go ordering 65 parts and say "oh dang why doesn't this fit".

Plus that 68 hood is iconic Shelby!

I think the insurance Company owns the car, pretty simple.
 
Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

I think it fairly believable that one could think that somewhere along the line during those 30 years a typo might have occurred on the paperwork. If I was in the owners shoes and I had a car, title and legal registration to a vehicle I doubt very much I would go to the DMV and start asking questions.
 
Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

If my title called my car out as any other year I'd be looking to get it corrected or find out what gives.

I doubt very seriously the current owner was not aware that his 68 mustang had a 65 vin and tiltle.
 
Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

"Horseplay" said:
. If insurance paid out, hasn't the owner essentially given title over to the insurance company? I would assume in normal cases if a car is recovered the owner and insurance work something out.
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You are correct If the insurance company paid off the owner, he had to surrender the title and it's the insurance company's car now. However, IIRC there was a similar case a few years ago in which the insurance company returned the title to the original owner/their policy holder in exchange for a refung of the original settlement.
 
Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

"Sluggo" said:
If my title called my car out as any other year I'd be looking to get it corrected or find out what gives.

I doubt very seriously the current owner was not aware that his 68 mustang had a 65 vin and tiltle.
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If we were talking about a 2002 GT, I'm with you. This is a 68 Shelby GT 500. If I have a legitimate title/registration from the state I'm not doing a thing other than driving it. How many times have we seen, heard of or read about title problems on old cars? I would not want to risk having my registration put into limbo while the DMV tries to figure it out. I'd have a very valuable asset collecting dust (maybe for years) in my garage.

If the only thing wrong on the paperwork is what should be an 8 for the year is a 5, I think it a very reasonable conclusion that in 40+ years someone hit a wrong key at one point while typing up a registration/title. For most of those years it was a strictly manual process, remember.
 
Re: Stolen '68 Shelby GT500 found

Don't rule it out, I drove the "E" car for years with the wrong VIN number. One day I was going through the titles and just happen to notice that it was missing a number. There were only five where they should have been six. So after checking the car VIN I seen that one number was missing, yes a typo. So off to the DMV I go to try to get it fixed. What I thought would be a easy fix quickly turned into a nightmare. They had to send an investigator to look at the car to see if any thing had been altered or tampered with and also request a copy of the microfish (I guess that's it) from Richmond before they could correct it. So after waiting weeks the Agent came back and handed me a form and said it was our fault and I would not have to pay to have it corrected. So I thought no problem, we are all human. So back to the DMV I go to correct the VIN on the title. Thinking all has been solved a few weeks later I took the car out for a drive. Before taking off I checked to make sure I had the registration and insurance card in the car and low and behold, there was no tag number on the registration. So I'm off to the DVM once again. They said that I had never paid the sales tax on the car when I registered it. Can you believe that. I tried to explane to them what had happened with the title mix up and they refused to listen. I then said screw it, and walked out. Now if I want to drive the car, I do. I've been through several road checks and nobody has caught it, yet.
 
My first '66 I restored ended up with the local DMV putting an I instead of a 1 in the number. It was 2 years later when I found it. Walked into the local Az. DMV office and in 5 mins., I had it all fixed. There are advantages to knowing everyone in town sometimes......
 
I had to haul my car to the BMV to get a typo fixed. The girl came out to the car, asked me to get on the trailer and read the VIN off to her, then we went inside and printed up the new title. Voila!
 
DMV mistakes absolutely happen. When i titled my car in PA as a classic, The girl doing the transfer titled it as a classic motorcycle. I had no idea until about 6 weeks later when the little motorcycle plate showed up at the house. This issue took about 6 months and three trips back and one inspection to get sorted out. It was one of the reasons i started tearing down. You know, since i couldn't drive it.
 
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