Classic Mustangs List Archive

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Mail From: walt (Walt Boeninger)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________*

A Los Angeles man is getting his stolen Mustang back ? 38 years after it
was stolen. The vehicle has an extra 300,000 miles and a different paint
job, but Eugene Brakke's 1965 Mustang is evidently running just fine.

Brakke reported the car stolen to Burbank police in May 1970.

One month later, a Long Beach teenager named Judy Smongesky received the
car as a high school graduation gift from her father, who had bought it
at a Bellflower used car dealer.

Smongesky, who now lives in San Diego, said Thursday she had been
driving and maintaining the car for nearly four decades, and only
learned that it had been stolen when she recently prepared to sell it.
San Diego police verified the car was hot.

"It's his car, even though he had it for four years and I had it for
38," Smongesky said. "He seems like a real nice gentleman, though."

Brakke found out Smongesky had twice rebuilt the engine and painted the
Mustang from its old gold color to silver-blue.

"He wasn't too happy with that," Smongesky said.

The pair planned to meet up to transfer the car soon.

"It was hard but it was the right thing to do," Smongesky said. "I
haven't really cried yet, but when he drives it away, I think I'll fall
apart."

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: 69stang11 (Eric Haack)

WOW! What a story. I feel for him because my 69 was stolen back in 1980 but
it was found the next morning in Compton, Ca. But 38 years...WOW! We got
lucky because my Dad installed a manual oil pressure gauge in it the night
before and he forgot to tie back the plastic sending line. Therefore, the
line somehow got burned against the exhaust manifold and the theives must
have seen quite the smoke show and left it for dead on the side of the
freeway in Compton. Compton was about an hour and a half away from where it
was stolen from. I guess they shut it off in time, because we were able to
drive the car home and drove it for many more years. :-)

Eric
69 Sportsroof


----- Original Message -----
From: "Walt Boeninger" <walt at boeninger.net>
To: "Eric" <69stang11 at charter.net>
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 9:51 AM
Subject: [CM] LA man gets long-stolen Mustang back


> ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________*
>
> A Los Angeles man is getting his stolen Mustang back ? 38 years after it
> was stolen. The vehicle has an extra 300,000 miles and a different paint
> job, but Eugene Brakke's 1965 Mustang is evidently running just fine.
>
> Brakke reported the car stolen to Burbank police in May 1970.
>
> One month later, a Long Beach teenager named Judy Smongesky received the
> car as a high school graduation gift from her father, who had bought it
> at a Bellflower used car dealer.
>
> Smongesky, who now lives in San Diego, said Thursday she had been
> driving and maintaining the car for nearly four decades, and only
> learned that it had been stolen when she recently prepared to sell it.
> San Diego police verified the car was hot.
>
> "It's his car, even though he had it for four years and I had it for
> 38," Smongesky said. "He seems like a real nice gentleman, though."
>
> Brakke found out Smongesky had twice rebuilt the engine and painted the
> Mustang from its old gold color to silver-blue.
>
> "He wasn't too happy with that," Smongesky said.
>
> The pair planned to meet up to transfer the car soon.
>
> "It was hard but it was the right thing to do," Smongesky said. "I
> haven't really cried yet, but when he drives it away, I think I'll fall
> apart."
> _______________________________________________
> Classic-mustangs mailing list
> Classic-mustangs at lists.twistedpair.ca
> lists.twistedpair.ca/mailman/listinfo.cgi/classic-mustangs
>
> Visit the Classic Mustang Wiki! sauce.donair.org/~cm/
>

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: mustang (Brandon Peskin)


On Mar 21, 2008, at 9:51 AM, Walt Boeninger wrote:

> A Los Angeles man is getting his stolen Mustang back ? 38 years
> after it
> was stolen. The vehicle has an extra 300,000 miles and a different
> paint
> job, but Eugene Brakke's 1965 Mustang is evidently running just fine.


Here's the picture from the LA Times:

tinyurl.com/2omtgz

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: walt (Walt Boeninger)

Nice looking car.

There was a '69 or so Corvette last year recovered after
35 or so years .... it turned up in a shipment going to
Europe, and someone tracked down the VIN number as stolen

Locally there was a '57 or '58 T'Bird recovered after a
similar time.... I think Ebay was involved in that one.

So that means there is still hope for our Yellow TR-6
that was stolen in 1977 ????

Walt

Brandon Peskin wrote:
> On Mar 21, 2008, at 9:51 AM, Walt Boeninger wrote:
>
>> A Los Angeles man is getting his stolen Mustang back ? 38 years
>> after it
>> was stolen. The vehicle has an extra 300,000 miles and a different
>> paint
>> job, but Eugene Brakke's 1965 Mustang is evidently running just fine.
>
>
> Here's the picture from the LA Times:
>
> tinyurl.com/2omtgz
>
> _____________

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Mail From: CloudWalker1581 (CloudWalker1581

How could this car be sold from a used car lot? Don't they check
titles in Ca.?


**************
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AOL Home.

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Mail From: W427 (W427)

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Mail From: walt (Walt Boeninger)

Except that 65-67 Mustangs are registered via the VIN
stamped into the fender. The Warranty plate is not supposed
to be used for registration purposes.... I believe it says
so right on the tag. Like this:

mustangdecoder.com/decoder.html

So what happened here is certainly not clear, but New Car dealers
have usually handled the DMV paperwork in California, so "mistakes"
can and do happen. As an example, real Shelbys sold in California
new may be titled as a "FORD" "MUSTANG", or "SHELB" "SEDGT500" (mine
for example.) Or in the case of 67 #2736 the make is "GT 350"
and the model is "GT350" on the sales contract. At least they used
the Shelby VIN. Good friend of mine tried to get Cal DMV to retitle
his GT500 as a Shelby.... but they wouldn't budge.

Walt


W427 wrote:
> It was a VIN plate switch like happened to my Mom's convertible about
> 1980 and my best bud's '67 SS Camaro about 1987. Hers was recovered in
> sad shape - his was never found. They buy-up wrecks or salvage vehicles
> and collect titles and VIN plates, match them to similar ones to steal,
> and do the switch. The titles would show clean. It still happens
> today. Many small car dealerships are directly involved in these rings
> or don't check because the deals are sweet and they don't want to know.
> Buyers have no idea in the first place. The state only knows to process
> the legit number they're sent. Easy money.
>
> David
>
> CloudWalker1581 at aol.com wrote:
>> How could this car be sold from a used car lot? Don't they check
>> titles in Ca.?
>

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: walt (Walt Boeninger)

...hit send to soon....

I have a copy of the title to that GT350 also... and what
wound on it is "MAKE" GT350 and what they call BODY TYPE/MODEL
is simply "CPE"


--

Regards
--------------
Walt Boeninger
mailto:webmaster at norcal-saac.org
boeninger.net
shelbytransam.com

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Mail From: W427 (David)

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