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After 39 years, Tenn. man reunites with stolen Corvette in Scottsdale
by Ofelia Madrid - Dec. 11, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
The last time Chance Mayfield saw his 1965 Corvette was on a late November night in 1970 in the parking lot of a Nashville nightclub.
Sometime after he went into the club, his prized possession was stolen.
On Monday, 39 years after the fact, Mayfield was reunited in Scottsdale with his valuable muscle car.
"I got down on my knees and kissed it," said Mayfield, who lives in Baxter, Tenn.
A Scottsdale police detective, with the help of Nashville police, helped track down Mayfield after the car was flagged as stolen by the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division database during a title search.
Scottsdale police officials were unavailable to comment, but Scottsdale Detective Mark Wagner told the Tennessean newspaper: "When I called Nashville to tell him we found this car and the detective stopped laughing, he said he'd check the archive, and there it was."
The collectible car had found its way to Arizona when a local collector paid $65,000 for the Nassau blue Chevrolet with a white interior.
"When the guy tried to title it, it came up as stolen," Mayfield said.
What followed was a court hearing in which Mayfield had to prove that he was, indeed, the owner in 1970.
On Dec. 2, his birthday, Mayfield got a special present: He learned that a Scottsdale judge had awarded him his car. Though Mayfield declined to disclose his exact age, he said he is in his 60s.
The car buff's trip down memory lane began with an early-morning phone call a few weeks ago. Mayfield woke up to a barrage of questions from a Nashville detective. The last sentence from the detective, according to Mayfield, was, "We found your car."
"What car?" Mayfield asked.
"Did you own a 1965 Corvette?"
"You found it?" Mayfield asked. "What kind of condition is it in?"
"Supposedly, it's completely restored," the detective replied.
"I about fell out of bed," Mayfield recalled this week. That sleek Corvette was a car his father had helped him buy.
"The night it was stolen, I was on Lower Broadway at the Broadway Barn partying," Mayfield said. "When I came out, my car was missing."
He remembers telling the investigators at the time that the car was probably stolen to be stripped and sold for parts. It was a heartbreaking thought because Mayfield took such care of the car that he had never driven it in the rain.
Four decades later, he found out that pampered prize most likely had been sitting in a collector's garage. It had only been driven about 12,000 miles over nearly four decades.
"It came out of Nashville in 1970, and where it was from then until 2000, nobody knows," Mayfield said.
The title could be traced back only about nine years: It went from a New Jersey collector to California and then to Arizona, he said.
Mayfield arrived back in Tennessee on Wednesday night with his "new" old wheels after towing the car home on a straight-through, 38½-hour drive from Arizona.
As of Thursday afternoon, Mayfield still hadn't driven the car.
"It gives me cold chills," he said. "I just go into the garage and look at it."
by Ofelia Madrid - Dec. 11, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
The last time Chance Mayfield saw his 1965 Corvette was on a late November night in 1970 in the parking lot of a Nashville nightclub.
Sometime after he went into the club, his prized possession was stolen.
On Monday, 39 years after the fact, Mayfield was reunited in Scottsdale with his valuable muscle car.
"I got down on my knees and kissed it," said Mayfield, who lives in Baxter, Tenn.
A Scottsdale police detective, with the help of Nashville police, helped track down Mayfield after the car was flagged as stolen by the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division database during a title search.
Scottsdale police officials were unavailable to comment, but Scottsdale Detective Mark Wagner told the Tennessean newspaper: "When I called Nashville to tell him we found this car and the detective stopped laughing, he said he'd check the archive, and there it was."
The collectible car had found its way to Arizona when a local collector paid $65,000 for the Nassau blue Chevrolet with a white interior.
"When the guy tried to title it, it came up as stolen," Mayfield said.
What followed was a court hearing in which Mayfield had to prove that he was, indeed, the owner in 1970.
On Dec. 2, his birthday, Mayfield got a special present: He learned that a Scottsdale judge had awarded him his car. Though Mayfield declined to disclose his exact age, he said he is in his 60s.
The car buff's trip down memory lane began with an early-morning phone call a few weeks ago. Mayfield woke up to a barrage of questions from a Nashville detective. The last sentence from the detective, according to Mayfield, was, "We found your car."
"What car?" Mayfield asked.
"Did you own a 1965 Corvette?"
"You found it?" Mayfield asked. "What kind of condition is it in?"
"Supposedly, it's completely restored," the detective replied.
"I about fell out of bed," Mayfield recalled this week. That sleek Corvette was a car his father had helped him buy.
"The night it was stolen, I was on Lower Broadway at the Broadway Barn partying," Mayfield said. "When I came out, my car was missing."
He remembers telling the investigators at the time that the car was probably stolen to be stripped and sold for parts. It was a heartbreaking thought because Mayfield took such care of the car that he had never driven it in the rain.
Four decades later, he found out that pampered prize most likely had been sitting in a collector's garage. It had only been driven about 12,000 miles over nearly four decades.
"It came out of Nashville in 1970, and where it was from then until 2000, nobody knows," Mayfield said.
The title could be traced back only about nine years: It went from a New Jersey collector to California and then to Arizona, he said.
Mayfield arrived back in Tennessee on Wednesday night with his "new" old wheels after towing the car home on a straight-through, 38½-hour drive from Arizona.
As of Thursday afternoon, Mayfield still hadn't driven the car.
"It gives me cold chills," he said. "I just go into the garage and look at it."
