From the, “WTF Were They Thinking Department,” comes this very unusual story from KARE11 about a pair of cars that were stolen from a classic car dealer in Mankato, Minnesota. At 4:00 am on Monday morning, three men broke into Unique Specialty Classic Cars apparently after a 1987 Buick Grand National.
From what we’ve learned from various sources, there were actually two Grand Nationals in the facility. One with 50,000 miles, and another with 3600 miles. After realizing the battery was dead in the first car, they focused their attention on the second. Unfortunately that meant moving other vehicles outside in the snow in order to extract it from the building, which included a hot rod ’33 Ford and a ’57 Chevy Sedan Delivery – all of which suffered minimal damage as they were rolled down a hill alongside the dealership and smashed into other cars.
Not being satisfied with just ripping off a 3600-mile Grand National  – that more than likely has seen little to no precipitation its whole life – one of the thieves jumped behind the wheel of a 14,000-mile ’95 Corvette Indy 500 Pace Car that Unique also had in its facility. The ‘Vette was dumped just a few blocks down the street, but they got away with the Buick down the snow-covered roads just before dawn.
A few hours later the internet was awash with the story spreading across the country like wildfire, but they didn’t have to look far to locate the car. The goons apparently thought they were home free and just parked it on the side of the road on the South Side suburbs of Minneapolis. A police officer on patrol recognized the car, checked the VIN, and called it in. A wrecker was there shortly and the car would spend the night in police impound for its rightful owner to retrieve the next day. Or so they thought…
In just ten hours after the car had been retrieved, the thieves broke into the police impound lot while the guard was distracted and stole the car again! We’re not making this up…
When one steals a car from the police impound, it means they more than likely either subdued the guard or just crashed the gate. They chose to crash the gate – with the Buick – upon exit. Of course not even the dumbest criminals steal cars out of police impound lots, so our friends must have been inspired by the likes of Fast and the Furious 4 and Gone in 60 Seconds.
Naturally, one would assume these clowns would head straight for the chop shop or to a storage facility already reserved for such an undertaking after all of this. But, no. The GNÂ was spotted later that afternoon in the parking lot of the Target Campus West building, where an onlooker recognized the car from the news reports and called it in. It had suffered damage to the passenger side fender, parking light, headlight bezel, air dam and header panel but is very repairable. The car is currently being held at an impound lot in a remote location, upon the release to the vehicle’s owner.
While all of this was going on, the owner of Unique Specialty Classic Cars blew up the internet through social media, forums, collector car websites, and other outlets – to the point that it would have made it impossible for the thieves to sell the car outright or ship it overseas. Basically, they would have had to part it out if they had planned on making a quick buck on it.
But that’s just the thing, we think these idiots actually had planned on keeping the car even though they didn’t actually have anywhere to keep it. So they just dumped it in various public parking locations to return to later as they felt the need to drive the car. Based on this assumption, they’re obviously amateurs and more than likely high school or college kids that still live with their parents. We hope they’re soon found and the judge throws the book at them, both literally and figuratively. Watch the original news broadcast here.
Rick Seitz is the owner and founder of GMEFI Magazine, and has a true love and passion for all vehicles. When he isnât tuning, testing, or competing with the brandâs current crop of project vehicles, heâs busy tinkering and planning the next modifications for his own cars.
