BRING BACK ‘BLUEBIRD’
Driver offers a hefty reward for recovery of his prized 1972 Datsun 240Z,
The heartbroken owner of a vintage sports car that was stolen from north Pickering is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the return of his “bluebird.”
The blue 1972 Datsun 240Z was stolen from a garage where it was stored near Concession Rd. 8 and Sideline 12 sometime between December and mid-March, Durham Regional Police said Wednesday.
“I was in my 20s (when I bought it), I was a young kid, and I drove the car like I stole it all the time,” said Scott Davidson, who is now 67. “It’s a test point in my memory that I can come up with all sorts of stories about what I did, where I went with that car. “It was a super car.” When Davidson bought the car, it was brand new. It was his “daily driver” for years, until he bought a new car, and then it became his “weekend warrior,” upgraded and modified for car rallies.
“Anyone that knows that car knows that they almost are built with rust in them,” Davidson said with a laugh. Fixing the rust was the first modifi- cation he made to the car, shortly after he bought it, but many more would follow.
“There’s only so much you can do with that type of engine,” he said. “But it was a highly popular car at the time so there were a number of pieces that could be added.”
After a while, Davidson started storing the car in the winter, and in 1992, he put it in storage and decided not to bring it back out. The car stayed in the same garage from which it was stolen for the next 18 years.
In 2010, determined to bring the car back to its former glory, Davidson got in touch with Whitehead Performance, which specializes in restoring 240Zs. He spent around $10,000 further modifying the car – “To me, it was like a kid in a candy store,” Davidson said.
The car went into the shop in September 2010. The next summer he drove it again for the first time since the ’90s. “It felt really good,” he said. “It was actually a better car in 2011 than it was in1972 . . . It brought back a lot of youthful ideas and I was absolutely thrilled I had my baby back.”
The building where the car was stored was not a professional storage facility, but Davidson says he did not make it easy for any prospective thieves. He took the battery out of the car, and stored it at his house, so any prospective thief would have had to tow or flatbed the car away.
“It would be no mean feat to get in there and take it away,” he said.
Police are asking for anyone with information about the theft to contact them, and have released photos of the car.
Davidson has been posting on Facebook and forums, hoping to spread word of the theft and reward. Support has been widespread, with replies across North America, reaching as far as parts of Europe. “The enthusiast community for Z car owners, certainly it’s a fraternity or a sorority or whatever you want to call it,” Davidson said.
“It’s a group of like-minded individuals who feel it’s an affront to them as much as to me to have somebody steal this car . . . It’s a bit of a grieving process, you have to talk about it, you have to have people who grieve with you.”