Stolen Corvette found after 37 years Tue Jan 17, 1:53 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Corvette sports car stolen when it was brand new in New York 37 years ago has been recovered in California and will be returned to its rightful owner, authorities said on Monday.

The 1968 car, which vanished from Alan Poster's garage in the borough of Queens on January 22, 1969, was identified as stolen as it was being loaded on a container ship for Sweden last November, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Mike Fleming said.

The car had recently been purchased for $10,000 by a man in Sweden who was unaware it had been stolen nearly four decades earlier, Fleming said. Since Poster's insurance at the time did not cover the Corvette's theft and he was never compensated, he is entitled to get it back.

"When the California Highway Patrol contacted him, he said its a miracle. He's very excited about it. He's flying in tomorrow," Fleming said. He said Poster had since moved to California and long ago gave up hope of seeing the car again.

The Corvette, which was originally painted blue with a matching interior, is now silver with a red interior. It is missing the gas tank, has a new engine and transmission and no longer runs, Fleming said.

California Highway Patrol officer Joe Zizi said investigators had determined the Swedish man purchased the car from a man in Texas, who in turn bought it from someone in New Mexico.

None of them was involved in the theft or aware it had been stolen, Zizi said.

He said that after the Corvette was found to be a stolen car, detectives in New York were contacted and spent a month sifting through about 10,000 archived stolen car reports to find the original owner.

N.Y. Man Gets Corvette Back After 37 Years Tue Jan 17, 9:07 PM ET

CARSON, Calif. - The last time former New York City resident Alan Poster saw his dream car, he was young and it was blue. Nearly four decades later, he's a little grayer and the car has turned silver — but it was love at first sight again as the Corvette somebody swiped in New York was returned to him.

"It's a dream. Wow, this is a beautiful model," Poster said as customs officials unveiled the 1968 sports car. "This is definitely a miracle. Because in speaking to the police, the odds of them finding me were a million to one."

Poster said last week that he won't drive the car much — he has a Mercedes — but he is glad to have it back in his collection.

Poster was living in New York in January 1969, when the car he'd bought for $6,000 three months earlier was stolen from a parking garage. Poster had not insured it against theft because he could not afford to do so.

He went on with his life, eventually moving to Northern California.

In November, the Corvette was inside a shipping container at the Port of Long Beach, destined for a buyer in Sweden. A routine customs check showed that the car had been reported stolen on Jan. 22, 1969, but there was no address for the owner.

Nobody knows where the car was or through how many hands it passed. While it appeared in perfect condition, some things had changed. It was silver with a red interior, had a different engine and lacked a gas tank, and its transmission had been stolen from another car.

The car was seized, and New York police were notified. Two detectives spent days studying microfilmed files until they found the report. They tracked down Poster and notified him that his long-lost Corvette had been found.

"The odds against finding it so many years afterward were phenomenal," said Mike Fleming, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

No arrests were made in connection with the theft of the car or the transmission.

The car's seller, a Long Beach collector, and the Swedish buyer are not suspected of wrongdoing, authorities said.

Poster, meanwhile, is overjoyed.

"This car was probably the last car I ever really (loved)," said Poster, 63. "It was the hottest thing around."