An 82-year-old man has been reunited with his British sports car stolen 46 years ago.
Ivan Schneider, a retired lawyer, lost his Jaguar XKE when it was stolen outside of his apartment in New York in 1968. After the incident, he started collecting classic luxury vehicles. However, he never got over the "great car that got stolen."
"I would tell stories about this great car that got stolen," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I have had a lot of great cars since then, but none has been as pretty."
The vehicle, which was seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complex, was found in a shipping container that was bound for the Netherlands. The car was found with other luxury cars that had been reported stolen. The container also had a 1969 Corvette, a 1976 Mercedes 280, a 2007 Mercedes E350 and a 2014 Camaro ZL1. The cars were stolen through scams and burglaries. Some were already on their way to countries like Sweden, the Netherlands and the Philippines before authorities found out that they were stolen.
According to Reuters, the container with the Jaguar XKE was already two days into its journey to the Netherlands before officials called it back. Mike Maleta, a California Highway Patrol investigator, said that officials ordered the ship operator to bring the car back to California. The shipment was traced to a man from Southern California, who claimed to have bought the vehicle just a few months ago. The previous owner said that the car had been parked in his garage for the past 40 years. It is still unclear who stole the vehicle in 1968.
Lou Koven, a special agent with the National Insurance Crime Bureau, told Reuters that it was unusual for officials to recover an old car like the Jaguar XKE. Koven's agency, which was involved in the recovery, had the authority to bring back the vehicle because the New York Police Department still had the report from 1968.
According to officials, the car's value has dropped to $23,600 (cars of the same model can go for as much as $100,000) because of rust and damaged parts.
