Sort of a similar situation happened to a friend of mine. Back in the late 70s/early 80s in college (graduated in 82) a buddy had a 68 Camaro he bought in high school. 327 automatic in fair condition. He drove it to school while fixing it up. Swapped in a 350-4speed. Drove it through most of college with the interior panels removed to keep them nice while he was working on it. Senior year of college he used some student loan money to finish it off. Nice new paint, interior back in engine bay detailed etc. was in the process of selecting nice wheels and tires. He went out to eat at a local restaurant and comes out to find a guy crawling all around the car. Seems this was a cop whose specialty was stolen cars. The cop noticed a]some discrepancy between the cowl vin and the stamped vin on the frame. Cop has the car towed and impounded as a stolen car. Turns out the car was stolen in 69 when it new. My pal bought it in 7-8 years later and had no idea. The car didn’t come with a title so my friend applied for an got one when he bought it. Well the insurance company paid the original owner and he was long gone. No one was contesting ownership just this cop discovered it was stolen at one time.
While all this history was being traced the police wouldn’t let my friend have possession of the car and it sat in a storage lot. Four months and a couple of court appearances later, the law says my friend can have is car back. Storage yard hands him a $4000 bill for storage charges. A couple of more court sessions and he ended up paying about $1500 to get it. During this time life was going on and his interest waned. Got the car but pretty much just parked it. Still has it but it’s back to a sorry state. No one won here, just the “expert” proving he was right.
