Stolen car found after 40 years : but where is the driver?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials credit vigilance for the recovery of a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle stolen nearly 40 years ago.

The car, being shipped to Finland, turned up in Detroit on January 30. Border officials worked with the National Insurance Crime Bureau and confirmed it was the same vehicle taken in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1974.

Knoxville, Tenn., police spokesman Darrell DeBusk says a man named Joseph McDonald reported it stolen in 1974. He says a phone number left by McDonald no longer works.

DeBusk says McDonald may have been a college student in Knoxville at the time. The car now is white but was red in 1974.

Federal border agents in Detroit who checked the paperwork discovered that the 1965 Beetle was reported stolen. The last owner, a Michigan resident, didn’t know that history. The vehicle was being sent overseas to be restored.

Agencies/Canadajournal