{"id":5077,"date":"2022-11-16T21:42:18","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T02:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/?p=5077"},"modified":"2022-11-16T21:46:17","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T02:46:17","slug":"grizzled-vette-driver-reunited-with-car-that-was-swiped-in-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/2022\/11\/16\/grizzled-vette-driver-reunited-with-car-that-was-swiped-in-1969\/","title":{"rendered":"GRIZZLED \u2018VETTE \u2013 DRIVER REUNITED WITH CAR THAT WAS SWIPED IN 1969 (Cliff Bieder is a friend and car guy who helped find this Corvette)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By <\/p>\n\n\n\n

David K. Li<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

January 18, 2006 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An emotional Alan Poster was back in the driver\u2019s seat of his 1968 Corvette yesterday \u2013 nearly 37 years after the curvy convertible was swiped from a Manhattan garage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a beautiful car,\u201d the 63-year-old ex-New Yorker exclaimed in amazement as he was reunited with the \u2018Vette at a U.S. Customs warehouse in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHoly . . . \u201d he began, before trailing off, shaking his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The classic car isn\u2019t driveable yet \u2013 it has no gas tank \u2013 and its original glorious blue body was repainted silver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Poster, who plans to restore it, clearly saw the \u2018Vette with the adoring eyes of the 26-year-old buff he was when he shelled out $6,000 in 1968 \u2013 two months before it was stolen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was the hottest car at the time and it still is,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably the nicest shape they ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was seized by California Highway Patrol and U.S. Customs agents in November after a routine check of its vehicle identification number before it was to be shipped from Long Beach to Sweden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They learned the car had been stolen in New York City in January 1969 \u2013 and contacted NYPD Detectives Bill Heiser and Cliff Bieder, who pored through microfilm records filed that year to find the owner\u2019s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were more than 70,000 cars a year stolen back then in the city. Today, it\u2019s about 17,000 a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was some passion in the NYPD and people out there were passionate and went out of their way to find me,\u201d said Poster, a businessman who now lives in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Police Headquarters in Manhattan, auto crimes unit detectives Heiser and Bieder said they spent days searching in the third-floor records room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe looked through film for four days and just about when our eyes were ready to pop, we found it,\u201d Bieder said. The two cops then tracked Poster\u2019s current whereabouts \u2013 and called him with the good news on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt first, he thought it was a joke,\u201d said Bieder. \u201cBut when we finally convinced him that we were New York City cops and that we had found his car, he was ecstatic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poster recalled the last time he drove it. It was the night before it was stolen and he took Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel into Manhattan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome guy revved his engine at me and I raced him to the toll booth. Am I going to get a ticket for that?\u201d he jokingly asked CHP officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poster said he doesn\u2019t know why Lady Luck smiled on him \u2013 but that a lot of people are e-mailing him to tell him \u201cthis has given them hope, and if this turns into something positive for someone, then that\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three prior owners of the Corvette dating to 2001 \u2013 including the one who was shipping it to Sweden \u2013 are not in trouble because they had no idea the car was hot, said the CHP, which is still investigating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cold case of the stolen hot rod had a happy ending for Poster, who took a good-humored approach to the mileage the story is getting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m at the 14 1\/2-minute mark of my 15 minutes of fame,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By  David K. Li January 18, 2006  An emotional Alan Poster was back in the driver\u2019s seat of his 1968 Corvette yesterday \u2013 nearly 37 years after the curvy convertible was swiped from a Manhattan garage. \u201cThis is a beautiful car,\u201d the 63-year-old ex-New Yorker exclaimed in amazement as he was reunited with the \u2018Vette at a U.S. Customs warehouse in California. \u201cHoly . . . \u201d he began, before trailing off, shaking his head. The classic car isn\u2019t driveable yet \u2013 it has no gas tank \u2013 and its original glorious blue body was repainted silver. But Poster, who plans to restore it, clearly saw the \u2018Vette with the adoring eyes of the 26-year-old buff he was when he shelled out $6,000 in 1968 \u2013 two months before it was stolen. \u201cThis was the hottest car at the time and it still is,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably the nicest shape they ever made.\u201d It was seized by California Highway Patrol and U.S. Customs agents in November after a routine check of its vehicle identification number before it was to be shipped from Long Beach to Sweden. They learned the car had been stolen in New York City in January 1969 \u2013 and contacted NYPD Detectives Bill Heiser and Cliff Bieder, who pored through microfilm records filed that year to find the owner\u2019s name. There were more than 70,000 cars a year stolen back then in the city. Today, it\u2019s about 17,000 a year. \u201cThere was some passion in the NYPD and people out there were passionate and went out of their way to find me,\u201d said Poster, a businessman who now lives in California. At Police Headquarters in Manhattan, auto crimes unit detectives Heiser and Bieder said they spent days searching in the third-floor records room. \u201cWe looked through film for four days and just about when our eyes were ready to pop, we found it,\u201d Bieder said. The two cops then tracked Poster\u2019s current whereabouts \u2013 and called him with the good news on Christmas Eve. \u201cAt first, he thought it was a joke,\u201d said Bieder. \u201cBut when we finally convinced him that we were New York City cops and that we had found his car, he was ecstatic.\u201d Poster recalled the last time he drove it. It was the night before it was stolen and he took Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel into Manhattan. \u201cSome guy revved his engine at me and I raced him to the toll booth. Am I going to get a ticket for that?\u201d he jokingly asked CHP officers. Poster said he doesn\u2019t know why Lady Luck smiled on him \u2013 but that a lot of people are e-mailing him to tell him \u201cthis has given them hope, and if this turns into something positive for someone, then that\u2019s great.\u201d Three prior owners of the Corvette dating to 2001 \u2013 including the one who was shipping it to Sweden \u2013 are not in trouble because they had no idea the car was hot, said the CHP, which is still investigating. The cold case of the stolen hot rod had a happy ending for Poster, who took a good-humored approach to the mileage the story is getting. \u201cI\u2019m at the 14 1\/2-minute mark of my 15 minutes of fame,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,17,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chevrolet","category-corvette-news","category-the-c3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5081,"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions\/5081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecorvettesociety.com\/CS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}