Terry Dietrich’s former 1972 Corvette. Photos courtesy Allstate.
In 1972, a young Terry Dietrich of DeKalb County, Georgia, purchased a new Corvette coupe, a car she still refers to as her first love. It was blue, with a T-top roof, and just six months after bringing the car home from the dealer, it was stolen from the parking lot of her employer. Forty-two plus years later, the car has been recovered by police, but there’s still a good chance it won’t find its way back to Terry’s driveway.
When police arrived to take her statement in 1972, investigating officers told Terry to prepare for the worst. Her Corvette, they advised, had probably been parted out already, its frame dumped unceremoniously in the Chattahoochee River. For over forty years the car’s disappearance remained an unsolved mystery, though Terry’s insurer, Allstate, had long since paid the claim for the car’s theft.
As 11Alive, via Corvette Blogger , explains, all that changed in early 2015 when Forest City, North Carolina car dealer and restorer Gary Green purchased a blue 1972 Corvette coupe from a local woman whose husband, the car’s owner, had recently died. Gary was so familiar with the car, which had been a local fixture since 1975, that he never thought to question its origins or the legality of its ownership. That changed when he purchased the car, and quickly realized its VIN was for a 1969 Corvette convertible, not a 1972 coupe with the T-top roof.
A closer inspection revealed a different VIN on the Corvette’s frame and engine, and Gary immediately notified the authorities. His Corvette turned out to be one stolen from Terry Dietrich in 1972, and police in North Carolina impounded the stolen car. To secure its release, a title matching the original VIN is required, but here’s where the trail grows cold.
Terry never had the title to the car, as it was stolen long before it was paid off. Her insurer, Allstate, admits that it may once have had the title after paying the claim, but no longer has the document. Even the State of Georgia, which issued the original title back in 1972, is of little help as it can’t produce a copy of the document.
North Carolina, meanwhile, remains inflexible in its ruling that the car won’t be released without a title or a court order, regardless of the original police report proving ownership. Technically, since it long ago paid the claim, the car belongs to Allstate, but even the insurance giant has had little luck in arguing its case for ownership with the North Carolina DMV.
Unless a title is found or a court order to release the car issued, it will eventually be sold at auction, something that original owner Terry Dietrich fears most. She knows she can’t afford to be the high bidder, meaning that someone will once again drive away in “her” 1972 Corvette. Losing the car was painful enough in 1972, and losing it again in 2015 won’t be any less so.
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