An ex-New Yorker is being reunited today with a lost love he hasn’t seen for nearly four decades – a 1968 Corvette that was stolen from a Manhattan garage.
“I can’t describe it,” the life-long car enthusiast told The Post. “It’s like getting an old friend back. I loved that car.”
The classic convertible is a lot worse for wear – it no longer has a gas tank or radiator – but it’s still worth at least three times what Alan Poster, 63, a businessman who now lives in California, paid for it back in 1968, when he lived in Chelsea.
The sports car was seized by the California Highway Patrol and U.S. Customs agents in November after a routine examination of paperwork for a container destined for Sweden.
A check with the National Insurance Crime Bureau found it was stolen in 1969.
The CHP called the NYPD – leading two detectives to painstakingly search old records and determine that Poster filed the police report.
When authorities contacted Poster, he thought it was a scam.
“I said, ‘Come on. Yeah, right, you’ve got my car.’ ”
Now, he says he can’t thank the NYPD officers – Bill Heiser and Cliff Beider – enough.
Poster bought the blue sports car with black ragtop and blue upholstery in November, 1968, for $6,000. It disappeared only two months later.
“I can remember pressing the lights, even in the daytime hours just to see them flip up,” he said.
The car-loving Californian has had many cool rides since he lost the Corvette at age 26, including Porsches, Volvos and his current 2002 Mercedes S, but he’s getting back an American original.
“It’s so rare to recover one,” said Roc Linkov of the National Corvette Museum. “They’re generally either shipped overseas or stripped for parts.”
Poster’s car is no longer drivable, but the body – now painted silver with red upholstery – is in good shape, said Mike Fleming of the U.S. Customs Service in California, who estimated it’s worth $18,000.
“It does not have a gas tank. It has a stolen transmission in it. And it has a different engine than it came with,” he said. “The engine is in the car, but it doesn’t have a radiator.”
But all that doesn’t matter to Poster.
“It’s not getting away from me again,” he said. “They’re going to have to kill me to get this car.”
david.li@nypost.com (p. 7 Metro)
WHAT IT’S WORTH
* In 1968, owner paid $6,000
* Value now: $40,000