by Wallace Wyss –
Oklahoma City, April 1 – A million dollar dream car from the Fifties was found abandoned outside City Hall in Oklahoma City today, with the key still in the ignition.
The engine was running when the car was found. Spectators report the radio was playing “How Much is that Doggie in the window.”
It was the long sought-after Cadillac LeMans, named after the famed race in France.
The car was reported missing November 8, 1953 in Tulsa, OK. “It belonged to General Motors–they had shipped it to Oklahoma City from Tulsa after its appearance at an oil exhibition,” said Captain Curtis Waggoner, with the Stolen Car Section of Oklahoma City police. The car is known to have been photographed with Mr. Moore, of Greenhouse-Moore Cadillac.
“We dusted it for fingerprints,” he said “but since it disappeared 66 years ago, we don’t even know if the thieves are still alive.”
One operating theory is that, whoever stole it in 1953 hoped to re-sell it at one time or another but the car was so recognizable, being one of four made to order by GM Director of Styling Harley Earl for his Motorama road shows, that the thieves were wary of re-appearing with it because in short order it would be recognized.
It has yet to be determined whether the car at the time of its disappearance was insured by GM and whether they will be reclaiming it for their Heritage Museum in Sterling Heights, MI. If the insurance claim had been paid off, the car could be auctioned by the insurance company once they take possession.
One clue to where the car has been might lie in a recently replaced 6-volt battery. “Not too many people buy 6-volts these days,” said Captain Waggoner, “if the thief paid for that battery with a credit card, or sent in the warranty card, we can check the warranty to see who bought it. We’re anxious to see who had it and why they hid it for so long.”
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Captain Waggoner made no references to the troubles at the dealership where the car had been shipped–the kidnap-murder of one of the dealership’s co-owner’s son three months before the car disappeared and the suicide in 1954 of the dealership’s other co-owner. Through the decades there has been speculation by conspiracy theorists that the three incidents are related.
Proof the car reached Greenlease-Moore in Oklahoma City – Mr. Moore with the car
In recent years, another missing Motorama show car, a 1954 Oldsmobile F88, was unearthed, restored, sold in 2005 for $3.2 million at auction, evidencing interest in the collector car community in the old show cars that once starred in the GM traveling road shows.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
Wallace Wyss
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is the author of 18 car books and co-host of the Autotalk show broadcast weekly from KUCR FM radio. He spends his spare time searching for lost cars.
If insured, and if sold/auctioned, at what price since it was insured way back and inflation has been a bit high. Would the insurance company get the inflated value or the projected value?
I did notice the April Fools thing.
Who’s stoopid? Seriously, there is a case to answer your question. In the case of the “shorty” Mustang, a show car created by an outside vendor for Ford and shown at the Ford Custom Car Caravan, the car’s creator loved the car so much that he stole the car, and hid it but it was recovered. But the insurance company had already paid the relatively low amount it was valued at (as a customized Mustang) bback in the Sixties, so eventually the final owner as it was taken to auction only a couple years ago was able to sell it for several hundred thousand.