Car found 40 years later, but not the owner … yet
In a handout photo provided by the Customs and Border Protection, a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle stolen 40 years ago in Tennessee is seen in Detroit. Federal agents making a routine check of the cars paperwork learned that the car was reported stolen in Knoxville in 1974. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ken Hammond says agents made the discovery Jan. 30 as it was being shipped by rail to Canada from Detroit. Hammond says the Beetle was going to be restored in Finland. (AP Photo/Customs and Border Protection,)
DETROIT — Police in Tennessee cannot find the man whose Volkswagen Beetle was recently discovered in Detroit, 40 years after it was stolen.
The 1965 car was found in January before it could be shipped to Canada and then to Finland.
Knoxville, Tenn., police spokesman Darrell DeBusk says a man named Joseph McDonald reported it stolen in 1974. He says a phone number left by McDonald no longer works.
DeBusk says McDonald may have been a college student in Knoxville at the time. The car now is white but was red in 1974.
Federal border agents in Detroit who checked the paperwork discovered that the 1965 Beetle was reported stolen. The last owner, a Michigan resident, didn’t know that history. The vehicle was being sent overseas to be restored.
