Okay, let’s say that I decided to steal a Tucker, since I’ll never be able to afford one. Now, at current values, the cars are worth about half a million each, so obviously if I get caught before the statue of limitations run out, I’m going to be spending some serious time in jail, but let’s say that I do manage to get away with it, and successfully squirrel the car away for however long a time period the statue of limitations is for such a thing. Can I then just roll the car out and claim it as mine, and not worry about the Feds/previous owner/other governments showing up, whumping me over the head and taking it back? Or do I have to keep it in hiding for the rest of my life? Note to mods, I’m not actually going to try and do this. I’m just curious.
Title still belongs to the person you stole it from.
Ah, but what if the title is tied up in a legal dispute?
Unfortunately, yes, you will have to give it back. The statute of limitation on the criminal action may have run out, but the previous owner of the Tucker (from whom you, uh, liberated it), would run to court and sue you civilly. S/he may have to do some fancy talking about the civil statute of limitation (which will likely have run, too), but will ask the court to impose a “constructive trust” on the Tucker. That means: “Hey – that’s my property – make him give it back!” The theory is that you have held the car in trust for its rightful owner, and the court will help you return it from whence it came. Sorry.
Irrelevant to you. Any person who claims title to the car could still sue you and seek a constructive trust. What the purported owner ought to do is sue you and everyone else who claims title to the Tucker, and require the court to sort out who gets to take the Tucker home.
Which, sadly, will likely not be you.
Damn it! What if my lawyer uses the Chewbacca defense?
Um, well – I, ah – I hadn’t considered the Chewbacca defense . . .
The bigger problem is how you plan to sneak it out of Brazil.
Well, I know that there’s some spare engines laying around, and the tranny’s out of a Cord, so I was thinking I’d drive it out! Er, I mean, this is purely an intellectual exercise, so I hadn’t bothered with that.
That’s easy. For a couple of hundred Real, I can put you in touch with some people, and you’ll be able to sneak a friggin’ 747 out of Brazil.
Whole boatloads of illegally cut tropical hardwoods are snuck out of Brazil every day. One little Tucker isn’t even going to be a blip on the Policia Federal’s radar.
Diving north could be harder than you thought. One bad stretch of road The Darien Gap would be pretty harsh on a 58 year old car.
The most likely scenario is that the car would belong to an insurance company. I know someone that had a 66 Chevy Impala stolen. About 10 years later he saw his car at a car show and attempted to take possession of the car. A big stink was raised, the police were called and when all was said and done, the car actually belonged to the insurance company that paid the claim years earlier. The real loser was the guy that thought he owned the car, he lost the car and was not compensated.
That’s assuming that the car’s insured. I don’t know how insurance companies work in, say, Brazil, but in the US, most insurance companies won’t touch Tuckers. Most, if not all, Tuckers in the US are insured through Lloyds of London. Lots of restrictions on how the car’s stored, transported (if it leaves the garage, it costs you $1,000 extra on your premium), and where it goes. Given the descriptions of how the Brazilian Tucker is being kept, I’d doubt that it’s insured.
I know a Nigerian who has got 3/4 of these cars. Do you want me to put you in touch with him? Let me have all your bank details and I’ll see what I can do.
I would put the odds of you gettng away with it at 0.00000% This assumes that you did in fact get the car out of Brazil.
You would have to get it into the US, not as easy as it used to be.
Then you will need parts for a restroration. With only 50 or so built what do you think people will say if an unknown person shows up and needs a fender for a Tucker? Wouldn’t exactly take Dick Tracy to put that one together. So you decide to fabricate all the parts, or use stuff from other cars. Hammering fenders ain’t easy, but doable. If however you decide to put a chevy engine in the thing you have just ruined the value of a $500,000 car.
Next you will never be able to drive it, because somebody might spot it, and againt Dick Tracy is on the job.
Lastly you will never be able to show it to anyone for the same reason.
Oh yeah you could never mention the car on the SDMB. 
So if you wanted a car you could not restore, drive, show, or have the opportunity to respond to a what car do you drive thread, you just might maybe get away with it.
Maybe, but I would not bet on it…
As has been mentioned, you would never have clear title, and therefore could never sell this sucker at Barrett-Jackson, or Pebble Beach.
Seems to me that I heard on the news this morning of a classic Ford Thunderbird (or it could have been a Chevrolet Corvette) that was bought by a collector/restorer years after it was stolen. During the restoration process, he discovered it was stolen and had to return it to the original owner. I looked briefly, but did not find a link.
Rick, prepared to be shocked, but Tucker parts show up on eBay quite often. Heck, the Club even has a section of their site where members can sell Tucker parts and memorabilia. Also, I’d lay odds that most people wouldn’t be able to identify the car, muchless realize that it was stolen, since I continually run into people who’ve no idea what a Tucker is. Admittedly, if I showed up at a club function or some place like Pebble Beach, where folks really know their cars, it wouldn’t take long for someone to figure out that the car was stolen, but other than that, I doubt anyone would be able to figure it out.
Now that I think about it, I could probably pass the car off as one of Ida Automotive’s kits, so long as no one touched the body.
Hagerty Insurance will. I have my 66 GTO insured through them and my full replacement coverage costs less that $300 a year. The entire Harold LeMay collection, the largest privately held automobile collection in the world is also insured by Hagerty’s, and that includes the Tucker thats part of the collection.
Well, yeah, they’re a speciality insurance company, and your GTO, no matter how nice, isn’t a half million dollar car like a Tucker, and I know from speaking to a Tucker owner, that Lloyds (and no doubt Hagerty) puts restrictions on how the car can be stored. If those aren’t met, the insurance company won’t pay if the car’s stolen, destroyed or damaged.
Put a 6 pack of beer in the gas tank, and hi-tail it back to the future -where no one who knows about the car but you will be around. :eek: