Cars usually go to auction because someone missed payments, it was towed away, and the owner couldn’t afford to pay the lot fees, or they were abandoned and removed by police. Before a car hits the auction block, an auction house will typically run the VIN and perform an inspection to ensure they’re selling a product worth the cost.

That’s what Chris Griggs, an enthusiast-turned-dealer in Arizona, assumed when he bought three classic cars from a since-closed auction house back in his early 20s. After he rented a warehouse, got his dealer’s and auction license, he bought three cars: a classic 1963 Cadillac, a 1962 Chevelle, and a 1967 Chevy Camaro.

The Cadillac and Chevelle were legitimate, and he was able to flip them and make a decent profit. And then there was the Camaro, which quickly became a problem child.

“With the Camaro, well, I fell for some traps you usually try to avoid as a younger guy,” Griggs told VINwiki. “It was painted this bright, Synergy Green color, it had the matte black SS stripes on it, the staggered, five-spoke, oversized racing wheels, it had this look that just drew me in… I drive it and I buy it, and as I’m driving home, I realize it’s not as nice as I thought.”

The Camaro came with a few… Issues

The drive home was hard for Griggs, as he realized it wasn’t running very well, and the transmission felt a little sloppy. There wasn’t much headroom either, as the leather seats were stuffed too high. Additionally, the wheels would rub on tight turns.

After a few months of trying to make it work, he quickly realized the Camaro’s issues may be beyond his capabilities. So, he decided to sell it to a different auction house to try and recoup some of the money he’d spent on it. Things began to spiral when the other auction house tried to get the title issued to them.

“In Arizona, we have third-party officers to get titles for an auction; you don’t have to go to the actual government office,” he explained. “When I went to pick up the title, the woman behind the counter said, ‘You need to call the Albuquerque police department… This car is coming back as stolen.'”

So, he did his due diligence and called the police in New Mexico, where the original title was issued back in 1979.

Police had to dig through paper archives to find the case

Because the car was stolen in 1979, detectives explained to him that they had to dig through paper archives in the basement to find it. According to their records, there was no record of recovery, no record of an insurance buy-out, and nothing was implemented into any computer database once they became mainstream.

So, when the car was stolen, stashed away, and then resurfaced a few decades later in 1991 as a California car, it wasn’t difficult to get a new title without computer records to show DMV employees it was stolen. To them, it was just a car that needed a new title.

Then came the matter of returning it to the original owner or family, which is what Griggs wanted to do. However, the original owner would prove fairly difficult to track down. In fact, without official records of a payout, there wasn’t much the police could do.

Therefore, the Camaro was taken from Griggs’ possession, and it sat in an impound for quite some time. And that’s thanks to a detective who didn’t want to do any digging.

“As my luck would have it, the detective who was working on the case retired the next day,” he said. “So, apparently, the case was dropped on his desk, and he just didn’t want to deal with it. It may not have been his problem, but it was still my problem, because now I have a car I can’t do anything with.”

He decided to work with Arizona detectives instead

Arizona detectives were miraculously able to make contact with the original owner’s family. However, legally, the car couldn’t be turned over to him due to some… Legal issues.

“Apparently, when this car was stolen, it was kind of the beginning of his downfall,” Griggs explained. “Because, legally, he was no longer competent. He went under a conservatorship… His brother explained that… Within a very short window, he had his house broken into, a motorcycle stolen, and then the Camaro stolen. The mental anguish that these instances put on him was just too much, and apparently he was never the same after that.”

The original owner couldn’t claim the car, but Griggs was determined to return it to the family. Issues became more complicated when the owner’s brother couldn’t find any record of ownership for it. Therefore, the Camaro was put in legal purgatory. It couldn’t be returned to the original owner’s family, and Griggs couldn’t legally own it.

His head throbbing, Griggs gave up, and the Camaro sat in the police department’s impound lot.

Griggs ran into the Arizona detective assigned to the case years later

Griggs eventually got a job with Barrett Jackson, an esteemed auction house for classic and rare cars. Before a show, he ran into the detective he worked with in Arizona. He couldn’t help but ask about the troublesome Camaro.

“He was out there running the VINs on these cars and making sure everything was good to go, and I asked him, ‘Hey, what happened to the old Camaro?’ And he says, ‘Oh, it’s still sitting in our yard. Nothing’s happening to it,'” he said.

The detective said the family’s failure to provide proof of ownership made it legally impossible to hand over. Since you know, the police can’t prove it was theirs.

“He said, ‘We’ve tried everything. The problem is, the car has to go to Colorado to have a VIN inspection done, but we can’t release the car unless they can prove they own it and they have no paper trail, so this car is in no man’s land,'” said Griggs.

He went before a judge to claim ownership of the Camaro

When a car is tied up legally, it can go through a process called interpleader. From there, someone can go before a judge and argue for ownership. Based on the strength of the case, a judge can determine the car’s legal owner.

Since the original owner’s family decided they were no longer interested in trying to obtain the Camaro, Griggs became the legal owner. So, the next step was to try and get his money back. Working for Barrett Jackson made that fairly easy.

With a new title, a new battery, and fresh gasoline, he was able to see it sold to a new owner. After several years, he was able to recoup some of the money. Griggs walked away a wiser man.

“Always check the VIN when you’re buying a car,” he said. “You never know where a car’s been.”