Hello Robert,

Thanks for the kind response. Yes, it was and remains a horrific nightmare... one I have and LIVE nearly every day– even after all these years. All of it.

And eBay? Don't count on their help. First thing they'll do is request YOU get LOCAL police intervention. THEN they might do something. We can't impede commerce after all! The dollars have to keep flowing! No matter HOW they are flowing!

And with no police where the car was stolen and with the departments I contacted all standing around doing Freddie Prinze "not my job" imitations, nobody wanted to take responsibility for an investigation, much less an eBay intervention!

The loss included several prototype, one-of-a-kind items from my barns. SOME were vintage bicycles and bicycle items. These included prototype Silver King aluminum bicycle frames and the VERY LAST 26 x 2.125 American-made Carlisle whitewall balloon tire IN a box... mounted and given to me by the Carlisle Rubber Corporation... WITH LETTER from the company to me. And car items, some Packard– like items I saved from East Grand Blvd when Packard closed there in the 1950s. These included PACKARD BLUEPRINTS.... A LOT OF THEM. YES. But also included was the ONLY set of aluminum prototype pilot wheels for 1986 Mazda RX-7... which were very different from the normal production wheels. This was the ONLY set of these wheels in North America and the ONLY set to ever leave Japan. No telling what moron ended up with them and what kind of car they ended up on, but they also had brand-new prototype TIRES mounted. These wheels and tires would be SO HOT that nobody could possibly sell them and still know what they are. OR could they? SOME of those items indeed apparently were sold on eBay. Oh yes. I won't list the excuses I was given.

I'm an old guy now, and I had a lot of Packards over my lifetime. But my mistake was falling in love with the 1956 Caribbean. MY Caribbean. Which was made only more intense because I was given a ride in the first hand-made prototype back in 1955. That 1956 Caribbean convertible was my DREAM car and still is today. Nothing can change that.

However the financial loss, treachery and pain associated even with just the memory and what happened is almost unbearable to think about for very long. This wasn't merely a theft. It was a sneering, MALICIOUS, hateful theft.

As they saw it... how dare I have all of this cool stuff and live out where I lived... in the house up on the hill out in the country? What was I even doing there in the first place? They got off on doing me dirty... and having a free payday.

There really ARE "people" like this... MONSTERS are not just in the movies. They really DO exist.

By the way...it's "Leeedy" with 3 e's. Thanks again.

As for my service to my country? You are most welcome. Thank you!

...The grille looks very reminiscent of a GTO.

...and I figure I fit at least the elderly part. I started driving dad's 23rd series when he purchased a new car in 1960. A few years later when first married we had a couple of 55 Packards, then a long dry spell till we purchased a 40 and 48 in the more recent past...

This article, dated October 9, 2017, cites the car (LHD)...

I went back and read the old thread extensively. I see where you had contacted the curator of the Petersen Museum and wanted to hand off the communication with him to someone 'over here'. Do you know if that ever happened?...