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LOS ANGELES — When Jason Torchinsky left his Los Angeles home on April 4, he realized his beloved Volkswagen Beetle was missing.
The yellow 1973 Beetle had been his companion since he was 18 years old. He had safely parked it in front of his house for more than 13 years. Before it was stolen it was parked with one flat tire and another close to deflating. He had planned on getting his tires fixed in the coming weekend.
"It feels more like losing a pet than a car," Torchinsky wrote in a plea for help. "I know that sounds irrational, but it's the truth."
He posted the appeal on Jalopnik, an automotive news site, and included anecdotes of his beat-up, unthinking machine of a companion. He first thought it had been towed, but then recruited his readers to help track down his car.
Giving extensive details on the penny welded to the corner of the gas tank, the baby seat in the back and the iPhone dock in the ashtray, his post soon gained the attention of a reader who recognized the car and sent Torchinsky a photo. But the reader didn't say where he found it.
I know plenty of people who have cried when their cars were gone. It hurts. It's something you love and you don't want it gone — and car people understand this.
–Jason Torchinsky
"Someone posted photos of the car. It was clearly my car," Torchinsky said in an interview with KABC in Los Angeles. "It was clearly partially stripped. The headlights were gone, but it had the stripe on the hood."
Then a reader named Mike, from San Francisco, saw the cryptic photo and recognized the neighborhood where it was taken. He looked at the hill in the photo and the color of the house in the background, then he went through Google Maps and started combing through the results.
Mike had done what the police told Torchinsky was impossible. Within 30 minutes of the photo being posted, Mike solved the missing car mystery; he used Google Maps' Street View to search for the Beetle by virtually walking down neighborhood streets until he found the stolen car in El Sereno.
Mike sent the link to Torchinsky, and then Torchinsky raced to the location. When he found his Beetle, it wasn't totally intact.
It was stripped of its headlights, luggage rack, radio and engine. Altogether, the damage is estimated at about $3,000 but Torchinsky said investigators have some good evidence to pursue.
Thanking his car's rescuers, Torchinsky celebrated finding his car and wrapped up the 5-day search.
"Cars aren't the same as most machines in our lives," he told the New York Daily News. "I know plenty of people who have cried when their cars were gone. It hurts. It's something you love and you don't want it gone — and car people understand this."
Photo Credit: KABC-TV Los Angeles
