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Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:13 am

I was scrolling the classifieds this morn on TS and i seen a yellow vert that was for sale now stolen. That is really fucked up , its very painful to walk outside and see nothing in the parking spot where you lasted parked your bug at . I know how it feels cause it happened to me . 12/3/02 I parked my bug in front of my apt on the street on the corner of 4th and orange in long beach after 10 pm , i woke up at around 515 am and walked outside to find my 66 vert GONE!! I walked to the corner of cerritos and 4th which is 20 yards where i parked my bug from and i see a 67 hardtop parked with the idiot lights on and the back quarter window popped out with scratch marked all on the body where the window was supposed to be. I called the long beach police , and they took the report over the phone , no they did not come out . I told the police about the bug sitting on the corner and he ran the plate it was out of lynwood ca and wasnt reported stolen. I told the cop that its 525 am the owner probaly doesnt know yet. That morn i took to the streets of lynwood compton downey north lbc to see if i can find my bug... i came back to my apt at 11am and the 67 hardtop was still there.... i called the police again and told them the bug is still there... so they ran the plate again and it was in the stolen database by around 9am ..they towed the bug... With the help of TS my stolen bug was posted in jan of 03 in the stolen section.the last week of January I got a call from a guy saying he saw my bug covered up under a blue tarp in Downey , Ca the caller told me he was buying parts for his car and seen a yellow vert outside with a few other vws... i asked him for the adress and he told me he didn't know the address but it was off imperial highway and he would call me back later to tell me, he didnt call me back but i had the payphone number in my caller id so i typed in the payphone number online and found out the area from where he called me from... so the morning of February 1 , 2003 was watching the Columbia space shuttle explosion on TV , i called my buddies and my bro and we set off to the area that payphone was located in Downey , so im driving my caddy down Woodruff Ave and I saw a bug parked in the drive way at this industrial park with many different garages and businesses .. so i bust a u turn at this place on washburn rd and woodruff ave i drove past a group of guys at this vw shop they were hanging out while others where wrenching on vws... so i keep driving a few units down past the dubb shop was an gated area with more vws ..and guess what? i saw a bug under blue tarp with the tarp sagging ( no roof) i walked inside the gate which was unlocked and saw sanded yellow paint on the ground.. i ripped the tarp off and yes it was my vert. So i flipped out.... i told my chick at the time to call cops but I was so mad . When i was flipping out like 4 guys that were hanging out side that shop ran in a light green bug and took off ...so me being 20 years old at the time and still " invincible " I took off after them down imperial hwy in my caddy running red lights and all. The police saw us and pulled us over.... we all went back to the bug... The guy at the shop told the cops that area did not belong to him , it was used by sombody else who works on bugs.... my question is why did the guys run off when i was flipping out about my bug when they had nothing to do with it. in the gated area was all kinds of bugs and ghias bodies off pans .. my vert was off the pan.. it was on a different pan ( wasnt bolted yet) my engine and 5 spokes was in the garage next to the gate.. the cops told me to get what was mine.. i saw the engine which was repainted but the back of the fan shroud wasnt painted i told the cops before i walked in there was a Q scratched in the back if it... it was!! they sanded my body down a lot but it had my paint still on it and the things i put on the body to tell the police it was my body.. no interior no other parts just body rims and motor.. i should have looked around the garge more. And the asshole at the tow yard ( yes my car had to be impounded first) DOUGS TOWing or somthing in downey tried to charge me and extra 100 bucks to take the body off the pan (it wasnt bolted on !!!) I paid the cashier like 300 bucks already and she said i was good to go... me and my twin bro walked around to the back with out tow truck driver to pick it up and the old fucker who worked there said we werent getting the bug until we paid him 100 bucks to take the body off the pan i told him fuck you and he wasnt getting shit more the he went off on some racist rant rant saying something about you people lol ( yea im black) so my bro and i picked up the body and it was dragged on to the flat bed... my dead vert was towed to my parents house .. The city got on my parents asses about the bug in the driveway so my parents got on my ass about it.. i sold the body for 100 bucks to some kid who drove by and saw it .. i saw in on the TS a few years later in victorville , ca ... i emailed the guy and he said he sold it to sombody in Colorado ... it was put back together with a 66 pan infact. I was off into my first 67 hardtop when i sold the vert body at the end of 03 . As for the guys who ran the police cut them loose and the owner of the shop knew nothing thats what he told the police... he wasnt on the hook also.. i rember they said a guy named "Robert" comes over there in the evenings to work on vws.... nothing came about after that never heard from the downey police detectives again KEEP IN MIND THIS WAS IN WAS FROM DECEMBER 4TH 2002 TO FEB 1ST 2003 FROM THEFT TO RECOVERY . So the guys over there now had nothing to do with that from the information i obtained from my own detective work... so if you guys have stories about your v dubbs being stolen i would like to hear.. thanks!!

Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:36 am

Damn! I recognize that vert, I hate theives! My '59 was stolen from my driveway at night. It was found the next day in an alley off Atlantic Blvd in east la. Stripped of its og interior, ragtop mechanism, semaphores, headlights, tailights, polished 5 spokes, and my roofrack. This was around 03?, I still drive around that area in my bug to see if I can catch some mofo slippin'! :fist:

Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:54 am

oldeskool65 wrote: Damn! I recognize that vert, I hate theives! My '59 was stolen from my driveway at night. It was found the next day in an alley off Atlantic Blvd in east la. Stripped of its og interior, ragtop mechanism, semaphores, headlights, tailights, polished 5 spokes, and my roofrack. This was around 03?, I still drive around that area in my bug to see if I can catch some mofo slippin'! :fist: i feel your pain ... and since im a victim im always paranoid now when i park my bug and walk away but i gotta deal with it

Sun Oct 16, 2011 10:14 pm

I'm always paranoid, I can't leave it anywhere without me worrying about it. I'm going to look through my old pictures, I swear I have a pic of it at a pomona :D

Tue Oct 18, 2011 9:16 pm

oldeskool65 wrote: Damn! I recognize that vert, I hate theives! My '59 was stolen from my driveway at night. It was found the next day in an alley off Atlantic Blvd in east la. Stripped of its og interior, ragtop mechanism, semaphores, headlights, tailights, polished 5 spokes, and my roofrack. This was around 03?, I still drive around that area in my bug to see if I can catch some mofo slippin'! :fist: No Shit !!! 23 years later im still looking and I know one day i'll catch the motherfuckers who stole my best friends Vert. My best friend "Gramps" built some sweet verts back in South Central L.A. in the mid-80s unfortunately he also got into alot of trouble with the law. His biggest battle forced his family to put up his lavender 66 vert on alloys and 48s up for sale to pay for an attorney. We placed an ad on the recycler for $3500 which was alot back then. On a Sunday morning when none of us was around his sister decided to set-up a test drive with someone who saw the ad. She let them test drive the car alone [-X . You know what happened next ](*,) . Details: It was 1988, McKinley and King Blvd. Freshly painted 66 Lavender vert with a white top, fully chrome 6" alloys front and 7s rear with pirellis, 2180 w/48 IDAs. His sister was hot, blonde, brainless and made it way to easy for them. No doubt Gramps deserved the Karma. He could build some bad ass bugs that none of us could even come close to building. Remember he was a bad guy and some of us had better senses that knew better than to get involved with the way he did things. But Its probably a good thing that we had no clue who stole the vert because i would probably be typing this from a prison cell today. It still Irks me today not so much that they stole the vert but because they came into our hood and stole it in such fashion :evil:

Fri Mar 16, 2012 4:22 pm

My Last build and VW owned circa 1988 a 1963 light green Convertible I had just finished it the day before...new motor,trans, blah,blah...Went to my girlfriends house at the time in Sante Fe Springs spent the night (I knew better not to leave it outside but was too tired to move all the cars and block it in) Her Mom wakes me up around 5:00AM telling my bug was gone......about a week later I get a call from the Santa Ana Police dept. saying they found my car.....go to the impound and totally stripped.......I was more upset to see it in that condition than if the fools that stole it keeped it intact and did a "pan job" & I would not see it ever again, but to see it all stripped like a dead carcass I guess was too much and I just sold it like that to some guy in Moreno Valley and kinda fell outa of the scene until now with my 1957 Oval Rag project.

I found a pic of my 63 Vert after it was recovered.....Amatuers!!...check the broken vent wing glass, and what they took, really!! side mouldings worth 10 bucks & scratched the paint taking them off with a screwdriver Man! they should have just "cambio"d it & keeped it together like that........I let my guard down one time & this is the result....too bad I let this theft happen and let it take me out of the air cooled scene until now 25 years later!!

Fri Mar 16, 2012 9:17 pm

Jiune 1985, Wilson High School, El Sereno. We were planning on going to Tommy's Eagle Rock during lunch. Heck, we would even bring the Narcs burgers if they let us out. We couldn't leave that day and by 3:00 pm when school was out my 1965 sunroof Variant was gone. The word got out and by 3:45 we found a a rolling shell by Hazzard Park on Soto, right by the 10 FWY. Freakin thieves even took all the windows. A 3 hour job!

Fri Mar 16, 2012 10:10 pm

The Vw Bug was like the #1 stolen car thruot the 80s. You definetly had to be on constant watch. Let your guard down for a minute and it could be gone that quick..

Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:53 pm

vwkidd wrote: My Last build and VW owned circa 1988 a 1963 light green Convertible I had just finished it the day before...new motor,trans, blah,blah...Went to my girlfriends house at the time in Sante Fe Springs spent the night (I knew better not to leave it outside but was too tired to move all the cars and block it in) Her Mom wakes me up around 5:00AM telling my bug was gone......about a week later I get a call from the Santa Ana Police dept. saying they found my car.....go to the impound and totally stripped.......I was more upset to see it in that condition than if the fools that stole it keeped it intact and did a "pan job" & I would not see it ever again, but to see it all stripped like a dead carcass I guess was too much and I just sold it like that to some guy in Moreno Valley and kinda fell outa of the scene until now with my 1957 Oval Rag project.

I found a pic of my 63 Vert after it was recovered.....Amatuers!!...check the broken vent wing glass, and what they took, really!! side mouldings worth 10 bucks & scratched the paint taking them off with a screwdriver Man! they should have just "cambio"d it & keeped it together like that........I let my guard down one time & this is the result....too bad I let this theft happen and let it take me out of the air cooled scene until now 25 years later!!

Update 2012 I have come full circle with my 1955 Vert since the last one 25 years ago. Trust that I will not let this one get "jacked"!!!

Sun May 20, 2012 7:30 pm

I grew up in East L.A. Before I was into the VW scene, one of my brother's best friends who also lived in E.L.A. owned an early 50's split window bug that he had souped up with a big motor, dual carbs, centerline wheels, reddish/brown primer color, lowered, the whole nine yards. This thing was fast! I remember him burning rubber changing from 3rd to 4th gear... Anyway, one night, he parked his car on his gated & locked driveway towards the back of his house, with his sister's 1980 Camaro parked behind it like he normally did. Well, one morning he woke up to leave for school (this was his car in high school) and he noticed his bug had been stolen sometime during the night. Whoever stole it snapped the lock off the gate with bolt cutters, broke into the 1980 Camaro, pushed it out and left it in the middle of the street, and took the bug (they think it was pushed down the block before they started it up because otherwise they would have heard the beefy motor). It was never heard of or seen after that, and of course the no-good East L.A. PD was of no help. The Samba would have been a great resource to help find the stolen bug then!!

Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:14 pm

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=533974

Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:03 pm

This guy told me one time, that the first car he ever stole was a Bug. Then he told me how. I guess this was for joy rides and for pre 1967 cars. He said that you run the licence plate wire to the coil, push it down the street and turn the headlights on. I've never heard of that before.

Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:49 am

A little hope for anyone who ever had a bug stolen from them.....
http://www.newschannel9.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_9273.shtml

Sat Feb 22, 2014 9:55 am

I noticed that all these stories took place in So Cal

I hope the fact that my bug is a super is enough to discourage someone from taking it :D

Mon Mar 03, 2014 7:49 am

Here's another Southern California story. I guess you have to chain them down out there. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/stolen-vo...-1.1312812

Mon Apr 07, 2014 3:46 pm

I went to High School just south of Pittsburgh and drove Bugs all the time. Mostly "$75 for two, build one good one" deals. Yes, they were cheap, and yes, they weren't fast, but dammit, I liked them. Anyway, I put a set of yellow fog lamps on my 67 Blue Bug. And they promptly disappeared.

A week or two later, I hear from a buddy that the local rich kid is bragging about how he took them and he'll kick my ass if I try to do anything about it. My Dad was a Baptist Preacher so there was no fighting allowed. That left only one thing: retribution!

The punks Daddy owned the local concrete plant, and it was right next to the local police station/Public Library. This was late 70's so no video cameras. " I'm going to the Library to work on my book report". Took my little VW lug wrench and broke a few headlights on his concrete trucks. Repeated this for about 18 months until I left for the USAF. A couple of times , while home on leave, I 'visited the Library'.

In '03 I took a job with a chemical company that supplied admixtures to the concrete industry. This guy was a customer. His Dad had died and he took over. In '09 we lost the account to a competitor. I had to go over to help de-install the equipment. As we were just about to leave, the punk comes out and asks if he knows me. I said I don't know. He asks my name and I tell him. He says , "I thought so. Every time I saw you here working I used to tell my brother that I stole the lights off your VW" , and he laughs about it. I responded with, "Yeah , and I used to walk through here and break headlights just for laughs."

I heard later that his dad used to beat him mercilessly for it because he was sure the punk had wronged somebody and that they were taking it out on his trucks.

Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:32 am

Well this time around layers of security is a must. I'M ON MY 4TH VERT NOW....AND CURRENTLY WORKING ON A 65 SUNROOF

Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:46 pm

Fish wrote: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=533974
I'd still like to run into this guy, Roland Knobs. Not that I'd get anything back, but some satisfaction.

Sun Mar 19, 2017 2:13 pm

Fish wrote: Fish wrote: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=533974
I'd still like to run into this guy, Roland Knobs. Not that I'd get anything back, but some satisfaction.

"Roland Knobs" sounds like a bogus name.... Hope you get your revenge.

Sun Mar 19, 2017 5:01 pm

It may be, but it was the name he used on two different rental agreements.