Happy ending for Japanese man whose sports car was stolen right before his eyes

Rotary sports coupe’s journey comes full circle as it’s reunited with its rightful owner.

Lovers of sports cars, rotary engines, and human decency in general were outraged earlier this week when Japanese Twitter user @NGO_fd3s posted a video of a group of thieves stealing his car from its parking space right across the street from his Nagoya apartment. Unable to get down to the ground floor in order to confront them, all he could do was shout at them to leave his Mazda RX-7 alone, while recording the criminals and trying to get a good image of the license plate of the car they had rolled up in before they drove off in the two vehicles.

When a car is stolen, it’s often so that the crooks can chop it up and sell its parts, and with the RX-7 being equipped with a unique rotary engine, and production of the model ending in 2002, its parts would likely command a premium on the shady secondhand market. At the same time, with Japanese domestic market cars from the country’s golden era of sports cars reaching an age where they can more easily be registered for road use in other countries, rumors abound of less than scrupulous overseas importers buying cars from thieves in Japan while being unconcerned with checking for proof of legal ownership.

So there was a good chance that when the thieves took the RX-7, their eventual destination was a chop shop or shipping container. Nevertheless, @NGO_fd3s asked people to be on the lookout for his beloved FD (as his particular generation of RX-7 is called), and now he’s been reunited with it.

The car was found in a coin-operated parking lot about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) northwest from where it was stolen, in the city of Inazawa, Aichi Prefecture. The steering column has been torn up from when the thief hotwired it, but the rest of the car, including the numerous modified body kit pieces, looks unscathed. It even still has its aftermarket wheels, which are among the easiest parts of a car to strip.

▼ Reunited

車が見つかったのは稲沢市のコインパーキングでした。
今回は沢山拡散された影響もあるかもしれないですが、コインパーキングに何日間か寝かせる説濃厚です。
ちょっと昨日、今日と寝れてないので今日は沢山寝させてもらいます。

本当にありがとうございました。

おやすみなさい。 pic.twitter.com/uGD4Eip6uQ

— なお (@NGO_fd3s) July 13, 2021

@NGO_fd3s tweeted that the car had been located early on Tuesday morning, a little more than 24 hours after posting the video of it being stolen. It appears to have been sitting in the Inazawa lot for several hours, and the video got may have contributed to the thieves’ decision to ditch the car, since the significant attention it got would make selling the car more difficult.

In later tweets, @NGO_fd3s has thanked the online community for spreading the word, and says that after the stress and excitement of the past few days taking a toll on him, he’s going to enjoy his first good night’s sleep since the theft took place. Odds are he’ll be going for a nice long drive soon, and while his car is in the shop to repair the steering column damage, he might want to think about installing an alarm, removable steering wheel, or some other sort of anti-theft device, since the thieves are still at large.

Sources: Livedoor News/Tele Asa News, Twitter/@NGO_fd3s via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Wikipedia/名古屋太郎 (edited by SoraNews24)
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