The world's most famous car

January 25, 2006

By DANE GOLDEN
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

You've seen the photos of Petaluman Alan Poster and his 1968 Corvette convertible on TV and in the papers. It's arguably the world's most famous car, made so by the well-publicized recovery of the stolen vehicle, taken from its New York City parking spot 37 years ago.

Soon you may be seeing the now-silver Corvette on Peta-luma Boulevard, the most famous cruising strip of all time due to George Lucas' masterpiece of cars and Americana, "American Graff-iti." The film was released in 1973, about four years after Poster's car was stolen.

To be precise, his Corvette was stolen on Jan. 22, 1969, two days after Richard Nixon became President and 10 days after "Broadway Joe" Namath's New York Jets upset the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.

It was returned to Poster on Jan. 17 in Carson, almost 37 years to the day after he parked it in New York. Poster is president of the Petaluma company Ace Products.

The vehicle was about to be shipped from the Port of Long Beach to a buyer in Stockholm, Sweden. But it seems the buyer should have checked CARFAX, because authorities had been looking for the car since no one knew who Neil Armstrong was.

"This is a miracle," Poster said when law enforcement officials told him that his car had been recovered.

The car was returned to him through a joint effort of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the California Highway Patrol, the National Insurance Crime Bureau and the NYPD, who were nice enough to provide us with this photo.

The car originally had a blue exterior and blue interior, but it's now silver on the outside and red on the inside. It has a different engine and transmission, and the gas tank is missing. So if someone's going to try to steal it again, he or she may have to push it. But Poster might want to put The Club on the steering wheel, just in case.

(Contact Dane Golden at dgolden@arguscourier.com)