Collector’s Car Snatched Off the Street

By LILA SEIDMAN | Reporter

A 1986 convertible Porsche Carrera was stolen sometime between 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 20 and Nov. 21 at 6 a.m. on the 500 block of Muskingum.

The car was parked on the street, but had a custom, protective cover over it. It’s worth north of $50,000 in the U.S., owner Daniel Keller said.

Los Angeles Police Department Detective Lynet Popper, who specializes in auto theft, said the thieves may have put the car in neutral and rolled down the hill. Video surveillance at Keller’s home did not capture the robbery.

“A lot of these older Porches are stolen and none of them are ever found,” Popper told the Palisadian-Post.

Popper said the LAPD has a suppositional theory that these cars are being stolen by a crime syndicate and then shipped to Asia—Japan and China in particular—where demand for these types of cars is high.

That would explain, she said, why only one of these types of cars has been recovered in the five years she’s been working the auto theft beat.

Keller said he’s had the car for 20 years and has many fond memories attached to it—he and his wife drove it cross country.

“At the end of the day it’s just a car, but I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone else,” Keller told the Post. He said he knows of several people in Pacific Palisades with similar cars and urges them to take extra security precautions.

Keller’s house has ACS signs prominently displayed, but the car jackers were not deterred. “These were brazen and accomplished car thieves,” he said.