It was a wild ride for a Contra Costa County man after thieves broke into his Benicia warehouse and stole his treasured vintage Chevrolet Corvette.
Michael Dodge described the loss he felt when he discovered his most treasured possession, his 1973 Chevrolet Corvette, had been stolen his 1973. He added that Corvette has been his in family since he was a kid.
“I felt sick. It’s like someone’s been kidnapped because we just treat that car like it’s one of the family,” Dodge said.
It’s a treasure that was passed on to him when his father died 31 years ago.
“I remember when I was seven and he ordered the car,” Dodge said. “It’s 51 years old and it only has 64,000 miles so it’s been babied. It’s never been driven in the rain. It’s one of those kinds of cars. It’s just sad.”
On Sunday, Dodge discovered someone had broken into his bio-tech company office in Benicia.
“It looked like a professional group. It wasn’t just a bunch of amateurs that just threw a rock through a window. They removed the glass panels from the front door and came in and they cleared the whole place out,” he said.
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They rifled through drawers and took what they wanted including laptops and his sports memorabilia collection, several signed NFL helmets.
“I had them all stacked up in here, and every one of them is gone,” Dodge said.
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But it was the loss of the classic car he had parked in his warehouse that hurts the most. I could not replace it even if they gave me $500,000 to go buy a car. That’s not my dad’s car.
Dodge said that he has so many memories wrapped up in the car and it all centered around his dad.
But late today he learned his search was over. After seeing social media posts a man called claiming he bought the car for $2,000. Police tracked the caller down and the CHP confiscated it in Colfax. Dodge will pick it up his classic car in the foothills on Wednesday.
