Police Recover Camaro Almost 30 Years Later

Every seven seconds or so, a car is stolen somewhere in America. The odds of finding a stolen car diminish by the minute, and while modern vehicles have plenty of anti-theft devices in place from the factory, protecting a classic car can be difficult. Finding one after it’s been stolen is as much about luck as it is about detective work. Yet sometimes, luck, fate, or whatever you want to call it conspire to reunite a car with its owner, sometimes decades later.

That’s the case with Robert Andrews. The LA Times reported that the Nevada native reported his 1973 Camaro stolen back in July of 1983 and was reunited with it last December. Better late than never, right?

The Camaro was stolen from Andrews in his former hometown of Santa Ana in 1983. The car was assumed to be gone forever, as there had been no leads or breaks in the case until a few months ago when a man in Los Angeles tried to register the car. He had bought it from a woman who claimed it had been sitting in her backyard for 15 years. But when the man tried to register the car, the paperwork and VIN number on the windshield didn’t match up, requiring the vehicle to undergo an inspection.

The California Highway Patrol inspected the vehicle and found the original VIN number stamped in several other locations. The CHP contacted the Nevada Highway Patrol, which took a month to contact Andrews and tell him that this Camaro had been recovered. The Camaro has since undergone something of a restoration, as if it had been sitting for 15 years it probably wasn’t in much of a drivable condition. It’s a crying shame for the hapless fellow who sunk his time and money into fixing the Camaro only to find out it was stolen almost 30 years ago, but we’re sure Andrews is happy to have his old Camaro back.