Stolen Corvette Sold 23 Years On

Now fast-forward two decades and more than half a million Rand in storage fees, wouldn’t that guilt (read: financial burden) begin to play on your conscience?

A mint condition 1989 Chevrolet Corvette, stolen from a San Diego car dealership in the same year, has been sold on eBay for the original sticker price.

Car thief confessed

According to the LA Times, a man, identified as "an Irish immigrant”, claimed he was “coerced by gangsters” to steal the Corvette 23 years earlier. The thief dumped the car in storage where it amassed the equivalent of Rs 2,14 million over two decades.

Police recovered the Corvette in September 2012 at a San Diego self-storage unit after the thief stopped paying the monthly fee.

They said the thief was co-operative and didn't charge him.

The cherry-red 1989 convertible, with only 107km on the odometer, was won on an eBay auction by Mike Robertson, a Newport Beach advertising executive.

 ‘This is a time capsule’

Robertson said that he had always dreamed of buying a car and storing it: “Somebody else did it for me. This is a time capsule.”

The final price was Rs 1,2 millions, which was the manufacturer's suggested retail price posted on the original windshield sticker.

The insurance company, which reimbursed the dealership for the Corvette back in 1989, sold the recovered car to Glendale wholesale car manager Corky Rice, who posted it on eBay.