Inside the wild hunt for a stolen, one-of-a-kind car worth an eye-popping $7 million

It started, arsenic galore of Joe Ford’s jobs did, pinch a telephone telephone astir a car truthful uncommon that only a fistful of men live had ever seen one. 

The 1938 Talbot-Lago T150C-SS Teardrop coupe, an Art Deco dream of swooping lines and sculpted chrome, and 1 of only 2 successful existence, vanished successful 2001 from a shuttered plastics mill successful Milwaukee. In nan world of vintage cars, it was a unicorn — built successful postwar France, worthy an estimated $7.6 million, and utterly irreplaceable.

It wasn’t for illustration losing a car; it was for illustration losing a celebrated coating by a maestro artist. 

“Stealing high-end cars is for illustration stealing nan Mona Lisa,” Ford tells writer Stayton Bonner successful “The Million-Dollar Car Detective: Inside nan Worldwide Hunt for a Stolen $7 Million Car” (Blackstone Publishing, retired now). “You can’t waste it. You can’t obstruction it. So nan collector conscionable keeps it successful his basement to look astatine it. Then erstwhile he dies, nan heirs effort to waste it and they fig out, ‘Oh s–t, Dad had a stolen car.’”

Ford, a detective successful his 60s from Boca Raton, Florida, specializes successful recovering stolen cars. But he doesn’t look for cars snatched from parking garages aliases shopping malls. 

“I’m a very circumstantial backstage investigator,” Ford told Bonner. “I’m successful a niche of a niche of a niche.”

He lives successful nan protector world of car obsession, location betwixt bounty huntsman and historian. Police departments seldom person nan clip aliases resources to prosecute a stolen Maserati crossed 3 borders. Insurance companies want recoveries, not trials. And collectors themselves are reluctant to induce excessively overmuch scrutiny into their dealings.

That leaves Ford chasing ghosts pinch thing much than a Rolodex of shady contacts and an encyclopedic knowledge of chassis numbers.

In 1984, while looking for a car for himself, Ford met Chris Gardner, an importer of German luxury automobiles. Gardner showed him nan ropes, and soon Ford was moving his ain business retired of a French Quarter townhouse. At his peak, he was trading 120 cars a year, pocketing $12,000 aliases much per vehicle. From those deals, Ford built nan web of contacts and hard-won knowledge that would later make him invaluable arsenic a car detective.

Sometimes Ford’s cases play for illustration Hollywood thrillers, but pinch grease and subpoenas alternatively of car chases. In Texas, he hunted for a Ferrari motor that had been installed successful a title boat, only to tear done nan fiberglass hull and descend consecutive into nan Houston Ship Channel. Tracking it done salvage yards and paperwork, he yet surfaced nan wreckage.

He had seen each assortment of automotive crime. Once, he wore a ligament for nan FBI wrong a Milwaukee restoration shop suspected of trafficking stolen cars. Another time, he helped investigators ace an Atlanta-based theft ring, successful which mechanics were moving multimillion-dollar classics done brokers to overseas buyers. And successful 1 of his wildest assignments, he tracked Mafia-linked Ferraris smuggled into nan US pinch forged VINs, portion of a lawsuit truthful sprawling nan feds dubbed it Operation Horseplay.

But nan car that made Ford’s profession — and became his individual obsession — was nan Talbot-Lago, what Bonner calls “one of nan astir brazen automobile heists successful history.” For Ford, nan enigma was irresistible. “Some cars speak to me,” he ells nan author. “This 1 screams.”

The theft was arsenic unusual arsenic it was surgical. On a acold March nighttime successful 2001, men successful achromatic overalls trim nan telephone lines astatine nan Milwaukee location of Roy Leiske, nan eccentric plastics magnate who owned nan Teardrop. Then they drove to his erstwhile factory, wherever nan car was stored. There was nary motion of forced entry. According to accounts, nan thieves dismantled their prize portion by piece, utilizing a crane to load it into a waiting truck.

“The parts and astir each nan paperwork — moreover immoderate receipts making love backmost to nan 1960s — were gone,” Bonner writes. Nothing other was touched.

Leiske was shattered. He spent years obsessively hunting for nan Teardrop. When he died successful 2005, still empty-handed, his property passed to a distant cousin, Richard Mueller, who abruptly inherited a uniquely analyzable problem: a multimillion-dollar car that legally belonged to him but physically nary longer existed.

“The lawyer said, ‘Well, it’s portion of nan estate, but it’s gone,’” Mueller tells nan author. “‘And until it pops up, you can’t do thing astir it.’”

In 2006, Mueller turned to Ford. He agreed to return nan lawsuit connected his ain dime, successful speech for an 80% ownership liking if nan car was ever found. He had individual reasons for nan gamble. Ford’s daughter, Julia, was slow going unsighted from retinitis pigmentosa, a uncommon familial illness that kills nan cells successful nan retina. Recovering nan Talbot-Lago wasn’t conscionable astir master pride, it was astir securing her future.

Years passed. Then, successful 2016, he sewage a break. The Teardrop had resurfaced successful Illinois, now successful nan possession of Rick Workman, nan multimillionaire laminitis of Heartland Dental. Workman, a novice collector, had wired $7.6 cardinal to acquisition nan car successful 2015 from nary different than Chris Gardner, Ford’s aged mentor-turned-nemesis. Gardner had simply put nan stolen Teardrop connected nan unfastened market, complete pinch fabricated paperwork, and sold it to Workman arsenic if thing were amiss.

But erstwhile Workman tried to registry nan car successful Illinois, it instantly tripped nan NCIC database of stolen vehicles. The lawsuit landed connected nan table of Milwaukee detective Jeff Thiele, a 22-year seasoned of nan constabulary unit who abruptly recovered himself holding a record dissimilar thing he’d seen before. 

“Domestic violence, homicide, I’ve done a lot,” Thiele told nan author. “But this was nan biggest, coolest lawsuit I ever had. This burglary was nan point that movies are made retired of.”

Gardner has insisted that he bought nan Teardrop lawfully and had each correct to waste it to Workman.

“These baseless allegations are thing more than an effort to harm my estimation without merit,” he told nan writer successful an email. “I stand by my lifelong grounds of honesty and ethical conduct.”

The conflict dragged to nan Wisconsin Supreme Court. In 2020, nan justices ruled that Workman’s possession of nan stolen Teardrop restarted nan six-year statute of limitations clock, giving Ford and Mueller caller ineligible crushed to reclaim it. But Mueller, who was 77, died of a changeable successful May of 2024, days earlier nan FBI announced it was dropping its lawsuit against Gardner for deficiency of testimony.

“The FBI said Richard was a cardinal witness, and now they don’t deliberation they tin meet their load of impervious beyond a reasonable doubt,” Ford tells nan author. “It’s conscionable a chickenshit, spineless move.” 

That’s near nan Teardrop successful limbo, locked distant successful retention and tied up successful ineligible uncertainty. But Ford had already turned his oculus toward different mystery.

While investigating nan Talbot-Lago, he learned a item that group disconnected siren bells. Chris Burke, a Florida mechanic who claimed to person helped Gardner bargain nan Teardrop, testified that Gardner had bolted from nan authorities successful 1997 — nan aforesaid twelvemonth nan Aston Martin DB5 from “Goldfinger,” nan astir celebrated stolen car successful nan world, vanished from a backstage hangar astatine nan Boca Raton airport.

Ford believed Gardner could person taken nan Bond car, hidden it, and shipped it overseas nether a mendacious VIN. It was precisely nan benignant of play Gardner had pulled before. Gardner laughs it off.

“I am James Bond,” he tells nan writer of nan latest accusations. “Ass clowns.”

Ford is presently still hunting for nan Aston Martin. The Teardrop remains successful ineligible purgatory, locked distant successful storage, its nonstop whereabouts unknown.

With Gardner connected nan loose, Ford isn’t taking immoderate chances. “I was cooking nan different night,” he tells Bonner, “and kept a pistol successful my waistband.”