Seen this on eBay?

[pacratt]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281587687200...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Buyer BEWARE.
It's Bill Milner's Zink that was stolen in 2006.

[marshall9]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281587687200...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Buyer BEWARE.
It's Bill Milner's Zink that was stolen in 2006.

It says last on track in 2014. Not my business, but why wouldn't the owner put a winning bid on it, with a deposit on a credit card and just go and pick it up? If it's stolen, it's doubtful the one in possession of it is going to call police, even if he "falls down" during the transaction.....

Quite an accusation to make pacratt......if you are right, I hope the rightful owner gets it back. If you aren't , and the current owner came by it legitimately, you owe him at least one beer.

[Robert Mumm]

An old post on Midwest Council forum link below. OP how would you know for sure it was never recovered etc. and that is the car?


http://mcscc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=260

[pacratt]

The owner passed away in 2008.
The statute of limitations for prosecuting felony theft expired in 2009/2010.
The current "owner"/seller bought the car off CraigsList last year despite my identifying it to him as stolen property.
I know it's the car based on photographs I saw that revealed certain parts that I made for the car.
"Last on the track in 2014" is because he ran it on a test-day at Blackhawk.

[Mark_Silverberg]

While I can not tell for certain from the photographs there are many elements on the vehicle which are exactly as the were on Bill Milner's car. Given the proximity of the present location to the location of theft it is doubtful that it is another car.

I honestly do not know if there are any interested parties in Bill's family who want to attempt to recover the vehicle. I would not suggest anyone purchase this vehicle.

[marshall9]

Statutes of limitation begin when the crime is discovered, not when committed. Did anyone witness you telling the buyer that he was purchasing stolen property? Who sold it? Is there a bill of sale? What documents does the current owner have? Is there a paper trail? The test day at Blackhawk must have required some sort of paperwork, or tech inspection.......Someone can right this, if what you are saying is factual. Where is the car? If it is anywhere other than the seller's garage, the custodian can hold it for proof of ownership. Something isn't right here.


It sounds like you may know the family or knew the decedent. Win the bid on Ebay, then pay the deposit on a Visa card. At auction end, demand proof of ownership prior to settling the transaction. If it can't be provided, dispute the transaction with Ebay, and also, Visa will reverse the deposit.


You are a little late to the party. If you saw it for sale, and knew it was stolen and warned someone, why didn't you get authorities involved then?


There is more to this than is being laid out here IMO

[Mark_Silverberg]

I was not aware this came up on Craigs list. If I was aware I would have informed authorities at the time and pursued this more aggressively.


Everyone in in the VSCDA formula vee community has been on the lookout for this car since it was stolen in 2006.

Yes, we were all friends with Bill Milner -and yes we are still upset about this theft.

I can assure you that pacratt's intentions are transparent. He just wants the buyer to beware as he has stated.

The shame out of all this is that it is a pretty good car and should be out on the track.

[pacratt]

It IS a very involved story of how this guy came to contact me.
I merely wanted to put it out there so people knew the background before they might buy.
It IS the car. I already know it. If the seller gets pissed that I put the truth out there, he knows where to find me.

Glenn Lange

The grief that this put Bill & Janine through, not to mention the financial loss... then Bill's passing 14 months later... to see the car now, being bought & sold for someone else's gain... it's like salt on an open wound for me.

[marshall9]

Right on. I hate to see anyone in our racing community get taken advantage of. It's even worse when it's the family of a deceased racer Hopefully, you guys up there can figure out how to right this.......

[Mark_Silverberg]

As Glen mentioned, the statute of limitations for the original theft has passed.

I do not know what the law says about receiving stolen property - and what could be pursued in that venue.

I wonder if the family could pursue a civil / small claims suit to recover the value of the vehicle if the seller receives revenue from the sale of the vehicle.

Ultimately I think we would all like to see this car back on track - but there is a right way for this to happen.

[Daryl DeArman]

I do not know what the law says about receiving stolen property - and what could be pursued in that venue.

I wonder if the family could pursue a civil / small claims suit to recover the value of the vehicle if the seller receives revenue from the sale of the vehicle.

Ultimately I think we would all like to see this car back on track - but there is a right way for this to happen.

Good question. I am certain the laws vary by state.

I was involved in settling an estate of someone that may have had lots of stolen items. I am not an attorney, but had to follow some pretty structured guidelines in liquidating the estate. It's a pretty simple, but time consuming process, involving providing the courts and all claimants against the estate a fairly detailed list of all items to be sold, as well as a fairly detailed accounting once they were sold.

In the cases where legal owners of items were not identified the stuff was sold. That money is then used to settle the estate in a priority defined by law until it runs out. If the estate is settled and there is money remaining then it is distributed to heirs as defined by law.


I'm only speaking to this process as IF the rightful owner of the FV didn't come forward to file a claim against the estate of the thief AND the administrators of said estate were not able to identify owner of the FV. At that point the FV gets sold to satisfy any timely filed claims against the estate. The fact that somebody else bought the car from the estate doesn't make that transaction illegal. Don't crucify the current seller of the car, he may have come across the car by very legal means.

[Mark_Silverberg]

Thanks for you input. In this situation the legal owner of the car has passed away. He was the victim of the theft and passed away not long after the theft occurred. It would be his estate or successors who would have claim to the vehicle.

The present seller of the car purchased it from an intermediary. It is unknown at this time through how many people the vehicle passed before it resurfaced.

We have all seen items we have "rescued" or wanted to rescue off ebay or craigs list. But there is a risk if the ownership trail can not be documented. Even if the acquisition of the vehicle by the present owner was a legal transaction they do not have an ownership claim to the vehicle if it can be proven it was stolen.

[Max Power]

So that would be me.

I know this story (at least a few limited versions of it) has been circulating a bit already. There is A LOT more to it. So let me tell you the whole story, and then you can draw your own conclusions.

I came across the car on Craigslist last spring, as several have pointed out. I was just doing the usual mid-day "hunt" on CL. I saw it and I was able to arrange to see the car that same evening.

The seller didn't really have any knowledge of it or its history. He said he bought it from a friend just as a toy, basically. His son drove it around the neighborhood like a dune buggy, and it had mud tracks to prove it. It's not his thing - he was more of a muscle car and dragster guy - I saw them. It was a decent car, but obviously needed some work. So I said what the hell, I'll buy it and figure out something to do with it. Call it my "belated 40th birthday present to myself", or some ridiculous excuse like that- you all know what I'm talking about. I looked everywhere for a chassis plate or roll bar stamp, but could not find one.

I gave him a deposit and we agreed he would deliver it for me the following weekend (at the time, my trailer was in storage several hours away, so it was a big time saver for me).

After I got home, I started doing more research on what it was, since I really don't know that much about FV's (I know a lot more now!). I didn’t even know it was a Zink at this point. After a lot of googling, I came across the posting on the Midwest Council site and some other motorsport site which was a google archive copy of the site, which had Janine's email address on it. Of course, my first thought was it COULD be Bill's car, but it wasn't 100% obvious. There were actually some discrepancies in the two descriptions.

Then it got crazy. I noticed that the contact's (Janine's) email address was from the same company where I work. So I tried looking her up in our company directory and learned she retired several years ago. I then found her Facebook profile picture and I recognized her! Not only that, she and I worked on the same floor in the office!! We didn't know each other personally, but we shared many elevator rides together over the years. This was getting crazy, our company is enormous… what are the odds?

I was grateful that we had the office connection, because it would make me contacting her a little less awkward, especially because I learned Bill had passed away and I didn't know how she would welcome the call after so many years. I mean, who am I to open these old wound anyways - especially since I really had no idea if this was Bill's car or not. This was just supposed to be some fun race car shopping.

I called her. She didn't answer, so I had to summon up an awkward/delicate voice mail message. She called me back a couple hours later, thankfully. I shared the whole story with her and we agreed I should talk to Glenn Lange since he knew a lot more about the car than she did. Glenn called me almost right away and we got to talking.

I sent Glenn some pictures that I took, and he pointed out a few things that were possibly/probably identifiable, but still not certain at least without having a little more evidence to back it up, other than his word. He told me he has the log books from Bill's car, in fact, so I was anxious to see them and settle it. He never showed them to me.

Over the next couple days, we had several heart-felt conversations about what to do. We all lost some sleep. I repeatedly expressed my desire to do the right thing, whatever that was. I asked Janine what she would like to do, if it was in fact Bill's car. We discussed a variety of options. She expressed one wish very clearly: if it was his car, she wanted it to be RACED. I committed to her that I would do what I could to make that happen. She also specifically told me she did not want the car back, either.

So we concluded that I would buy it and then we’d go from there. I invited Glenn to my house to come take a look after it was delivered, which he planned to do (and even cancelled a special date with his wife to come over instead – brave man!).

But, the day before it was to be delivered, Glenn called to tell me they changed their mind and they wanted to go after the guy who had it, especially because he now had a desire to get the trailer back, too (whu-what? There is no trailer, not from the guy I’m buying it from. Where did that come from?).

So I said go for it, but I don’t want to get involved any further. I would give them the CL ad and contact info and I would have to lose my deposit.

So at this point, there were two options:

1) I buy it like we planned and it’ll be in good hands. If we are able to confirm it was Bill’s car, then we’ll figure something out together. At least this way, we HAVE the car.

2) I step aside and Janine pursues a formal investigation. Who knows what will come of it, and who knows what will happen to the car. Anything could happen to the car! Who knows how many times the car could have changed hands over the years. This, after Janine specifically told me she wanted to move on and she wanted it to be raced. Didn’t make much sense to me.

Glenn’s conclusion: I guess we’ll never know if it was Bill’s car then.

And that's where we left it. Later in the summer, I emailed and called Glenn, letting him know about the progress I made on the car and to see if he’s interested in talking about it again. No response.

I feel I did everything I could to identify the car. I spent a good chunk of time, money and energy fixing a lot of issues and getting it ready to go. I got some help from some great guys. Anyone who wanted to race this car would have had to do all the work and updates I did. And it looks awesome, I think.

Yes, I took it to Blackhawk for their October test day. It ran flawlessly and did some really nice lap times, and I had fun!

I think it’s sad I’m being portrayed as the bad guy, given that I tiptoed every step of the way in good faith in a very delicate situation, and (possibly) rescued the car.

So am I the bad guy? Flame away! Better yet, come on over and we'll do some bench racing over some beers!

[Mark_Silverberg]

Paul,

You are not a bad person and no one here has implied that your intentions were not sound. Most people on this board have rescued or tried to rescue cars from unaware owners at some point. In some of these cases the chain of ownership is not clear.

This is a good car and when it last ran with VSCDA it ran well and had a strong engine. There is not anyone involved in the discussion that does not want to see this car back on the track.

At this point I can only advise you get back with Janine Miller and reach an agreement for her to release any claim she may have to the vehicle. You would not have to prove or disprove if it was Bill's vehicle for her to release any claim. If she wants or expects compensation for release of claim to the vehicle is a private matter and between you and her. You both are reasonable individuals. I am sure you can reach an agreement.

Ultimately who had possession of the vehicle in the interim and how the transfers have occurred before your purchase is irrelevant for this argument.

Yes, you are caught in the middle of a difficult and unfortunate situation. You did enter the purchase of the vehicle knowing that the ownership may be disputed. You are at risk at least for claims of diminished value if you sell the vehicle without clearing up the ownership issue.

[loudes13]

Who has the logbook?

BFR test days don't need logbooks or formal tech.

[Mark_Silverberg]

The Ebay listing for the vehicle has ended.

[Daryl DeArman]

Thanks for you input. In this situation the legal owner of the car has passed away. He was the victim of the theft and passed away not long after the theft occurred.

I was under the impression that the original "thief" was known and passed away, and then later the rightful owner did as well. I misinterpreted the story---perhaps drawing conclusions based on my story that this story didn't warrant.

[Mark_Silverberg]

It is still not known who originally took the trailer and the Zink which was stored in the trailer. There were never any leads or suspects. It was our assumption at the time that the trailer was the target and the Zink was just along for the ride.

[reidhazelton]

I know Paul and he is a stand up dude, 100%. He did what anyone should, but many would not, in this situation.

[teamwisconsin]

Many years ago my boss had finished a top shelf Lotus Twincam build for a client back east. The engine was dynoed, crated up and shipped. A week later though, the client contacted him; the engine had never arrived. The shipper said it had been "lost" and without insurance (learned that one the hard way), there was nothing anyone could do. My boss was on the hook to deliver a complete top shelf engine. So he did, out of his pocket. He put together a brand new T/C with all the goodies. Cost in early 1990's dollars was around $25k.

Fast forward to 2006. A fellow comes through the door of our shop who is a relatively well known Bay Area Lotus guy. He says he purchased a Twincam in a crate and wanted to see if my boss could refresh it for him, as it had apparently been sitting for some time and he knew my boss is a Lotus T/C expert. Turns out it was the stolen engine, some 15 years later. Still in the same crate, same bag over the motor, same handwritten notes attached to the bag in my boss's handwriting. The only noticeable difference was that the thieves had ground off the casting numbers; clearly they thought they were some sort of serial number to be able to trace the engines whereabouts. The fellow who brought it in became rather shocked and sheepish once my employer had informed him of the origins of his recent purchase. He claimed to have bought it from a guy who bought it from a guy who bought it from a guy who bought it from a guy... You get the picture.

Things being what they were, my boss looked at it like this: here is a solid engine. It's parts are known to him and he knows how much time and effort it would be to replace. So regardless of where or how it came back to the shop, it came back and the engine absolutely had some value. So, he stepped up and purchased the engine from this fellow. He gave it the refresh it needed (it looked really very nice inside and was really a time capsule of the "current" tricks of the '90s).

The takeaways (as I saw it anyway) were this: racecars and their parts aren't like street cars. After stolen property has been sold by the original thief, it's really tough to place blame with subsequent purchasers. Logbooks are easily replaceable, oftentimes they are lost merely over time or multiple sales anyway. If the current owner has discussed the situation with the family of the original owner and she didn't feel that he was in the wrong, isn't that the only opinion that matters? I've always agreed with the tenet of Keynesian economic theory that ownership is derived from a man investing work in something. If the current owner has had to spend $xxxx.xx of his own money and time, plus whatever he purchased it for, I'm not saying it cancels out the theft, but it doesn't mean the car doesn't still have a value as well, just like the engine my boss bought back.

[lenhart05]

Great posts Reid and Ethan! Paul is a 100% standup guy, too nice at times, and the above story is modest. He really did everything he could. Understandable, Janine didn’t want the car back.

Now Paul feels like crap. He enjoyed working on the Vee, as it was a new challenge coming from the FF side of things. It definitely needed some TLC and a good chunk of money to get it to the point where it is at. In a large part thanks to Paul, the car will race again. It could have easily been parted out or sold for scrap.

Tad Lenhart

[bob darcey]

This is such a sad story. The only bad guy is the thief, but the reverberations eight years later are still painful to decent people. Maybe you could get enough people to donate toward purchasing the car, maybe Paul takes a bit less than he deserves, and you turn the car into a scholarship vehicle, call it the Bill Milner Memorial (or something). Make the car available for driver school students or deserving volunteers to get their feet wet...or some other resolution that lets everyone walk away proud.

[lbrtruck]

From Jim Ryder - " That is Bill's car. I built it for him. The only thing thats different is the red paint. I did all the work described in the ad.

[Max Power]

Thanks for all your comments. I ended the auction to let the dust settle.

I’ve had every intention to do some events with it, which is why I went to work on it. But plans change, and I really do not have space for it. This story deserves a happy ending. If anyone wants to discuss options, I’m all ears.

[Mark_Silverberg]

Paul,

It is clear that everyone would like to see this car back on track. There is no reason that it should not be raced. This is a good car with a relatively minor issue of a potential dispute of ownership. While we can all sit here and say it looks like Bill Milner's old car we are merely observers and have no rightful claim to the vehicle.

The only way to fully resolve this is to go back to Janine Milner and ask her to sign a document releasing any present or future claim she may have regarding ownership of the car. That is really all that is needed to move forward.

[Max Power]

From Jim Ryder - " That is Bill's car. I built it for him. The only thing thats different is the red paint. I did all the work described in the ad.

This is inaccuate.

For the record, it was red when I got it.

I did all these things and have receipts to prove it.
- New ATL 4 gallon fuel cell and aluminum container
- Firebottle fire system refilled and certified by Firebottle
- New braided fuel lines with AN fittings
- New brake lines (EDIT: I did the fronts only)
- New hardware throughout
- New battery and wiring
- New steering tie rod ends
- New steering wheel quick-release hub
- Nickel plated steering links and shift linkage

[Ian Lenhart]

So if everyone seems to think this is Bill's car, so why doesn't Glenn give Paul the Log book and be done with it, move on and someone buys a legit FV and races the thing. Everyone knows the story and it is probably one of the best looking vintage Vees in the country. I'm not sure why everyone's surprised, the entire north central vintage Vee drivers knows this car sits in Chicago and is owned by Paul Reineck. Does anyone even care? It's in the hands of a racer and the car was made track worthy once again. Am I missing something here. It's a nice Vee that happens to have a very interesting story. Glenn, not sure why you neglected to inform everyone the story of Paul contacting Bill's wife and making Paul look like the bad guy.

[Jtovo]

Why doesn't Glenn give the logbook to Bills wife? Then she can decide what should be done.

[mdwracer]

After reading and following this entire thread for the last day(s) , Jtovo recommendation has the most merit IMO.... That logbook really belongs to the widow and ONLY her since the car was stolen from her deceased husband. If Pauls story is true, she will gladly give it to him...
Then the car can be sold with documented history and Paul if so inclined could give some of the proceeds to a charity that Bill would have liked....
Mike

[Jtovo]

Glenn, what do you think? Should you continue to hold the log books or do they go to Bills wife?