Quote Originally Posted by mrmustang
Actually, according to the original newspaper account, the owner was NOT paid off by the insurance company. As such, believe it or not, he has legal ownership of the car in question.

As for why it took so long to find out, simple, according to California sources far closer to the car than I am have stated the VIN tag on the door was from another car (most likely scrapped at that time in a wreck), and it was not until a potential new buyer did a little research in to the cars real VIN did it come up as being stolen. It is also been stated to me that the VIN stamped into the drivers side fender panel had been covered over or filled in as until a scraping was done, it was not visible to the naked eye as being different from the drivers side door data tag. Not the first time this has happened either......

Bill S.
Wow, with your facts it is a whole different story, and I agree that the original owner is still the owner. A sad story, indeed.