Los Angeles: Forty-six years ago Ivan Schneider, successful Manhattan lawyer, bought himself the Jaguar convertible that would feature in a most unusual tale of unrequited love.
It was the first (and “prettiest”) of many luxury cars he would own, his companion on fast drives — and the only one that was ever stolen.
Forty-six years later, a US Customs and Border Patrol analyst running a routine export check through a stolen car database came up with a hit. The 1967 Jaguar XKE was hot.
The problem: It was already on a cargo ship, in a container, headed for Europe, two days out of the Port of Long Beach on the Pacific Ocean.
Investigators with the California Highway Patrol and non-profit National Insurance Crime Bureau got to work.
New York police still had the March 1968 incident report.
CHP investigator Michael Maleta spoke with Schneider in Florida, where he now lives. Schneider thought it was a prank.
“After we convinced him, he was excited,” said Maleta.
After all, Schneider said on Wednesday, he would think of the car every time he bought a new one. And, he said, he is a car guy who has owned quite a few exotics.
For the months he owned it, he was in love.
“I’ve always said that was the prettiest,” Schneider, now 82, said.
Tracing the car’s history, Maleta learnt the Southern California man exporting it to the Netherlands had bought it about three months ago from an owner in the San Joaquin Valley, who himself had it 40 years.
What happened between its disappearance from the concrete canyons of the Upper East Side and its California sojourn — Maleta hopes his investigation will answer that.
After its out-and-back sea journey to the Netherlands, the car is back in Southern California, more than two months after the law finally found it.
The Jaguar and four other missing cars were discovered in late August by US Customs and Border Protection agents, who were assigned to inspect cargo leaving the Port of Los Angeles. Some were already at sea, destined for the Philippines, Sweden or the Netherlands, by the time a computer search of vehicle identification numbers showed they had been stolen.
They included a 1969 Corvette taken during a burglary in Portland 26 years ago, a 1976 Mercedes 280 fraudulently obtained through a real estate scam in 2002, a 2007 Mercedes E350 fraudulently leased in Glendale in 2008 and a 2014 Camaro ZL1 with illegal paperwork.
The cars were displayed Wednesday inside a Carson warehouse.
He purchased it for $5,000 after winning a big case. The car was painted a shiny grey and shaped like “a bullet,” Schneider said, with a sleek body and oversized headlights.
Koven sent over pictures of a white Jaguar with a dark-coloured passenger door. The thieves had painted the exterior, which was in good shape. The interior was beat up. Schneider forwarded the emails to close friends and family.
“I figured they would think it was my imagination, that I was writing a book or something,” Schneider said. “Who would figure a car would show up 46 years later.”
It’s rusty and scratched, but still worth about $24,000 — and far more if restored, as Schneider plans to do.
He’s hoping the fixes will be made by the end of the year.
“My Christmas gift,” he chuckled.
He just won’t push it too hard.
It’s old, so is he, and though beautiful it is known for trouble under the hood.
“I’ll use it as a Sunday car,” Schneider said. “They were never reliable.”
At least, one day soon, it will be back home.
