whats the worst hotrod thing you've had stolen

3 Early Ford quick change housings stolen from a swap meet table in Winston-Salem at Shep's Run in 1980, today those little items would be worth some serious $$$$$$. There is nothing lower than a sorry thief. Some of these stories about guys friend stealing from them beat all I've heard, with those kind of friends who needs enemies! I helped break a t-top theft ring years ago at a dealership by marking the VIN's on the inside of the trim pieces with ultra-violet ink. The law put the scum away for grand theft auto with all the evidence the found in a storage unit w/ the VIN's on the tops they could prove where they were stolen from. That might help some of you folks if you think the thieves are lurking around your stuff.

 

I had 10,000 worth of tools stolen out of my barracks, through two security check points (I lived in a very High Security area of the base). Would have taken at least three guys to get it down the stairs!

Also had the skull gear knob taken out of my car on another base. That was it, just the gear knob!

 

I arranged to have a cracked flathead block stolen. Wanted to get rid of the thing, so left it outdoors downtown. Maybe having that get stolen is more like abandonment. Or dumping.

 

After picking up all the stainless, grille, and chrome exterior trim for my '40 from my painter, and not taking the time to unload it from the back of my truck, my '92 S-10 got stolen, with all of the parts locked under the shell I had on the back of it. Fortunately, the truck was recovered, and all the stainless, etc, was just how I had left it.

 

had a set of 5 interco 38's on mickeys stolen from my house two weeks ago ,
i figure ill have the thieves asses when they go and have the tires changed,
i put " if you see this it's stolen , call the cops and have the fuckers who did it
arrested" and i put down my first name and my address all on the inside with bright
green neon tire paint i got from my rice burner friend, i also called the cops of course and informed them.

 

had a t top stolen off my hurst olds a few years back i heard a door pop open in my drive by the time i got to my gun they were down the road

saw the guy later that week and persued to chase him but my vw passat was left in the dust never got it back and ate shit when i sold the car missing the t top

 

My 46 flat fender Jeep, Pontiac slant 4, toploader, waren overdrive. worked all winter on it, the butt holes took it right out from under me. I was sitting just inside the open door it was parked next to having a drink, I handed the keys to one of the guys that didn't drink and told him to fire it up and we would be right out. He came back and told me it was missing and I told him naw, its a 4 cyl it runs that way,,,,,,,Duhh.

 

A 32 Ford grill shell. And I'm still pissed!!!!

 

I hate thieves.

I had a good friend in high school that taught me a lot about cars. This guy had a body shop and repo'd cars on the side. He used to take me out once in a while on repo's. He also let me use the tow truck on occasion.

One year during high school, a friend spent the summer putting together a 64 Nova two door hardtop. He had a 325 hp 327 with a four speed. In August it was stolen. He'd had it on the road just a few days before they took it. The car was found stripped about 60 miles away. Labor Day weekend I'm in a town about 90 miles away (thirty miles from where the stripped Nova was found) with some other friends I knew before I moved out to the boonies. Along comes this guy with an old Chevy that he had just put together. When he opened the hood I saw that 327 that I had spent two weeks of my off time that summer rebuilding for my friend's Nova. When I looked a bit closer I realized that the wheels, bucket seats and just about all the goodies were from the Nova. It took a couple of days to find out where the guy lived.

A day or so later someone took HIS car.

My friend got all his parts back.

That other guy never did find his Chevy.



Don't get mad, get even.....

 

Tools and bikes out of my shop, found the guy next door that did it. The pigs left no trace.

 

I had a police friend tell me this. They cannot check sos sec numbers but they can check drivers lic nos. so I mark mine with a stencel metal marker the kind than imprints a number in the steel. like this AL ??????? . all cops know these nos and will check. I had a set of heads for my race car stolen out of my pick up truck. a few years later I was a auto Michine shop and I spot my heads and called the police. The shop owner said he did not have the work order and then said a 600 dollar plus bill was due and would not give up the heads. I then explained that he was in possesion of stoled parts and he gave them up. So guys mark your stuff..

 

Not a hotrod part, but I went down to Milwaukee to meet up with my cousin and head to a show at one of the local colleges. Went up to his apt about a block from MSOE (for those familiar with area) for a couple beers before the show, maybe all of 45 minutes. Went to leave for the show and found my passenger window of my blazer now in pieces in my front seat, dash bezel ripped out and bent in half underneth the steering column, stereo and iPod missing. One of his buddies (small town kid) asked me if I wanted to call the cops, I said what for? to be another statistic and waste the cops time? I knew I could replace the stereo for cheap and the iPod, bezel and window would of costed the same as my deductible. PLUS, if I would of turned it into my insurence company, I'm sure they would of robbed me a second my jacking up my rates.

 

Well I had my virginity stolen in South Dakota out side a dinner in a van, are you suggesting we all move there.
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In early 1966, I woke up one morning and it was a beautiful day, looked outside and saw the brand new Chev bellhousing that I bought the day before sitting out in my front yard. I got up, threw on some clothes and ran out to the garage; the door was open and all of my parts to put my 327 together were gone, except the short block. They stole an aluminum hi-rise and AFB, my heads, clutch, light flywheel and an Edlebrock 6-2's manifold with 6 97's. Luckily they didn't steal any of my tools, just my parts. It gave me an expensive lesson on who to invite over to my garage, or trust. It would have had to been a friend.

I took me about two years to save enough money to put the motor back together; my wife and I had been married for almost two years and had a kid.

 

1966 GTO..Royal Pontiac (Royal Oak Mich) modifiied..421 HO..in 1968. Found striped..burned..totalled..

 

I 'm a freakin' thief magnet.........

Some highlights:

1972 - Portland, OR
Look out the kitchen window at 2AM, see a flashlight under my 57 Chevy. I call the cops, grab my a baseball bat, sneak out the back door, circle around to the front and catch the guy pulling out my 4 speed. Had to whack him in the knee with the bat and later on the hand to make him understand he wasn't coming out from under that car until the police arrived.... Cops had a good laugh....
Previous felon, got s'more jail time.

1974 - Oregon City, OR
64 El Camino... a month earlier I installed a crate LT-1 350 w/Edelbrock Smokey Ram intake, new Holley, new headers, new Muncie 4 sp..... Recovered 3 weeks later, stripped to the shell.

1977 - San Diego, CA
Full set of ET slot mags stolen off my parked '69 T-Bird while I'm at a Rolling Stones concert.

1981 - Palm Springs, CA
70 Chevelle BB convertible... about 2 weeks out of the paint shop (white pearl) and installed a new top. Stolen from a secured 5 star hotel parking garage....
Never recovered.

1983 - El Cajon, CA
77 Corvette driver... Victim of rollback truck thief while we were in the movie theatre. Witnesses saw truck but couldn't identify...
Recovered 2 days later, minus the front clip, engine, transmission.

1988 - Pomona, CA
Middle of the night, somebody steals about a pickup load worth of C1 Corvette parts at the swap meet, while I'm soundly sleeping (dead tired) in my car trailer 10 feet away.

1989 - Borrego Springs, CA
Shop behind my house gets broken into while I'm on vacation in Oregon. Lost 5 sets of SBC fueler heads, a HIPO 327 core motor, 2 sets of finned Corvette valve covers, (one set for an early 1957 F.I. engine) a set of LT1 aluminum covers, several sets of aftermarket cast valve covers, a 1963 Ford 427 short block & medium riser heads with Holman Moody covers, a Ford FE polished tunnel ram w/660 center squirters, 3 rebuilt Muncies, 2 rebuilt T-10's and a dozen disassembled 4 speeds, '61 Corvette dual quad setup, 406 Ford tri-power setup, Chevy 348 tri-power air cleaner, 1/2 dozen GM Winters foundry intakes, a few Holley carbs, 3 five gallon buckets full of magnetos, Delco dual point and tach drive distributors, oxy/act torches, arc welder, engine hoist and a bunch of tools.

1990 - Puyallup, WA
Air cleaner off my '62 Corvette gets stolen while it's for sale in the "car corral" at the Corvette swap meet.

1999 - Beavercreek, OR
Antique visible gas pump stolen from my driveway but the problem for them was, I heard the assholes. I jumped in my Blazer (with a full tank of gas) and the chase is on. They lost the pump off the trailer within 5 minutes. I chased them for another 30 minutes out through the country until they missed a corner, drove off into a 30 foot ravine and crashed....
Both guys got jail time and are still SLOWLY paying me restitution..... District Attorney asked me if I was for hire...

 

I had a Transit van nicked that I was using/fixing up.I used to leave it at the station and get a train into town like 5000 other commuters.It had a remote start,but someone REALLY wanted that van.I.ve had other stuff nicked and that was by hotrodders,I was too trusting and a bit naive.I,m winding myself up thinking about it

 

Back in the '70s I was living in a cheap rented duplex in San Diego. The "garage" that faced the back alley was little more than a shed so I was working on my '57 Chevy in the backyard. It was up on those cheap ramps and I had pulled the transmission.

The next day I go out and the lock on the "garage" is gone and so is everything inside. All my tools, the '57s transmission, a set of mag wheels, and some other stuff. Cops said it probably all went to Mexico and did nothing.

So there I was, a transmissionless '57 parked on ramps and no tools!

Being renters we had no insurance. It took me a long time to recover from that one.

There's a special place in hell for thieves.

 

Inherited my father's model A [Been in our family since new] and drove 1750 miles with an empty car trailer to claim it...got there and it was gone.
Filed a report with the po-leece and it was put on the NCIC hot sheet...posted on the HAMB where I got about 10 false sightings.from helpful HAMBers...distributed lotsa flyers locally but never heard a word about it. It's gone-gone.

 

I bought a shell of a 57 nomad and was fool enough to leave the doors and tailgate at the house of an aquaintance. Went back for them and he said "ooohhhh, I thought you picked those up already..." That b.s. said it all.
Also had a lot of expensive stereo stuff stolen out of my 56 chevy and the car got trashed in the process. Funny thing was a childhood friend had shown up and started hanging out just prior to this. Not only did he aquire a habit of sniffing powders, but he kept insisting that I sell him my stereo equiptment, like I had any reason to sell it at all. I'm still waiting to run into this guy again. Stealing the stereo was one thing, trashing my 56 was another. Beware of anyone who takes more intrest in your stuff than you have, especially after you've told them "NO".
I've said this several times on the hamb. The best thing I've ever bought is a video security system. whenever someone tries to rip me off or some asshole even shows up at the door, all I have to do is hit rewind, to see exactly what happened. Not only has this revealed several events on my property but video is 100% stronger then the word of mouth which can be ignored by the law. It's paid for itself several times over now.

 

i hate a f'n thief worse than just about anything.started building a 49 chev pu in 95.didnt have a lot of money.lots of horse trading,side jobs and overtime for parts.had aquired quite a bit and was starting to do some assembly.had a rented garage and alot of my parts were there.just had a bad "gnawing" feeling when i left that night.went by the following morning and my garage door was half open.it could have been a lot worse thay took my fresh 350 hanging on the stand and a brand new trans i had on a dolly.they didnt take all my tools just some.all said and done about $3000.00 insurance gave me $600.00for tools only then took $100.00 for the deductable.the next month went through a divorce.it stalled my project for 9 yrs .i'm still trying to get that thing together......................dave

 

Man, I guess I 've been lucky compared to most of you. The only Hot Rod thing I can remember ever having stolen happened at the world famous Pomona Swap Meet a few years back. We were set up to sell and Saturday night we had wandered around looking at others sellers shit and drinking way too much beer. We got back to our spot at about midnight and decided to set up our stuff so we wouldn't be trying to do it at 5am when the early birds come around. We got all the stuff out and decided to crash, Pete in the back of Old Paint (his 72 F100) and me on an army cot in the middle of the stuff. A few hours later I was awakened, barely, by a couple of guys talking. I heard one of them say "do you think they're awake". I kind of ignored it due to the Coors enhanced sleepiness. They said something else and I faded off.
When we woke about 5 I looked around and all the good stuff was there, the Holley carb, the manifolds, KYB shocks, Headers etc. Then I noticed the horror, it was missing. I looked everywhere but the bastards had stolen a Cal Custom 3 wing style Air Cleaner nut! After years of therapy I'm still not totally over it.

A Couple years later, we had set up and made little signs for our stuff. In the morning there was a part missing and a rock holding down a twenty dollar bill with a note on our sign saying "I talked you down from the $22.00 asking price"

 

If this thread keeps going I,m going to kill someone,because each story reminds me of something else got nicked.I eventually moved house when it was taking me 10 minutes to undo all the security stuff to my garage;someone ram raided the doors to get my tool chest,yep,in broad daylight.I,m talking a single garage here,not G.M. F&%)@ing enterprises.

 

A really nice '32 Ford firewall, '32 heavy front axle and bones with '38 wide 5" drums and '40 brakes attached, built 455 Buick engine with built 400 trans attached, plus lots of other great stuff and my faith in mankind. It all went to the scrap yard so my shit head neighbor at the time could buy meth. I have to stop thinking about this now....

 

Kind of reverse here but I still chuckle when I think of it. I used to operate parking lots in Hollywood in the nid 60's. I had a couple rolls of quaters disapeer on me at different times so I thought I would but some bait out and have some fun. I put washers in rolls and left them out and sure enough they disapeered. I then got bored doing that so cut corners off of bills and attcahed a note saying &&%$# THIEF on it and put the note under something with just the corner of the bill showing..Disapeered...Did that with purses and wallets too. It was fun watching the person crusing like a shark then going after the bait. Sometimes I find a broken chain saw and clean it up and leave it in the back of my truck or the gallon gas can with water in it...Fun to watch..

 

20 yrs ago a 1949 Bussiness coup. I still have the title incase some one screws up and trys to reg. it--I know fat chance but I loved that car.

 

SO CAL. guys i warn you about a guy by the name of Rick Kanes. hes a lying theiving motherfucker........


i had known this sob for about three years prior to him screwing me. for about a year he had trying to sell me a set of drop spindles for me shoebox, so last november after asking him about three hundred times if they will fit my jamco disc conversion and he telling meyes every time i finally broke down and bought the setup from him.... these supposedly brand new spindles and stering arms were on a complete front end assembly that i bought from him. after tearing the parts off the donor front end i am at my shop/work starting the swap when i go to start installing the disc conversion that i already had on my stock front end, and i start looking at the parts and they are not going to fit and will require about 2 hours of work on the mill remachining the brackets to make them work....... when i call him to tell him that his parts are either coming back to him or hes going to be compensating me in some way for this. he tells me that its no problem and that since i know him and all he want to help me any way he can.... (that was saturday) now its wednesday and he decides to come into my shop where the parts are still being stored, after he does his business with my boss i calmny confront him about the situation (really hard for me to do calmly) and his exact words were too bad i have your money and you have the parts FUCK YOU!!! this agrevated me a bit so i stand up from my seat and begin to walk towards him when he tucks his tail between his legs and runs to his car and speeds off he then begins to tell me after i call him and my father calls him that my boss who wasnt even there told him that i was beating the shit out of the parts and that im a hack of a fabricator and all kinds of bullshit. when i asked my boss about it he was absolutely floored that this guy/his friend of about 15+ years would do this. the shitty thing is, the son of a bitch still frequentls my shop and i cant do shit to him because hes the type that would go running and cause all kinds of problems for me and my boss.......

Moral of the story:

NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH FRIENDS!!!

 

Kinda off topic, but had my 05 Dodge Ram P/U stolen from a CHURCH parking lot during my cousins wedding in Independence MO. Cops said it was a big problem there. The thieves watch the papers for wedding announcements and hit the church lots. It was totaled 4 days later in a police chase, and the FEMALE was prosecuted after she got out of the hospital.

 

Luckily I have only had 1 thing stolen so far, but it was a weird thing to steal. Someone stole the wingnut and just the top stamped peice off my air cleaner. I thought it was weird that's all they would take, but I wasn't too pissed it was just one of those sutozone pieces of crap put on by the previous owner.

 

i sent 20$ to a well known hotrod shop for a catalouge and never got it. guess i buy my parts elseware. lucky that nuthin biggers been taken.