German Man Finds Car After Forgetting Parking Spot 20 Years Ago

A German man from Frankfurt was finally reunited with his car that he had reported stolen two decades ago, after it was found Wednesday in the garage of an industrial building that was about to be demolished.

However, it was revealed that the 76-year-old man, who was unidentified, had himself parked the car in the garage of the building in 1997 and forgotten about it.

For two decades the car remained exactly in the same place where he had once parked it. It silently corroded for years until it was announced that the building had to be demolished.

The unclaimed car in the garage was hindering the demolition process, and the company undertaking it reported the police about the rusting vehicle.

A subsequent investigation by the police revealed that the vehicle had been reported missing some 20 years back.

In 1997, the man had reported to the police that his car was stolen. The owner had simply forgotten as to where he had parked his car, and just assumed that his vehicle had been stolen.

According to the translated version of the German regional newspaper Augsberger Allgemein, the man along with his daughter was driven by the police to be reunited with the car.

The car took its last ride to a junkyard as it was no longer functional and had to be scrapped.

“The car cannot be driven anymore and will be sent to the scrap heap,” Frankfurt authorities said, according to the report in the regional newspaper.

The incident is similar to the instance when a German man was reunited with his vehicle two years after parking the car and going on a drinking binge in Munich.

The man had forgotten where he had parked his vehicle, and hence reported it missing. Two years later, police eventually found the vehicle 4 km away from where the man thought he had parked his car. This car reportedly had 40,000 euros in the boot, and some 50,000 euros worth of tools.

In 2016, a man from Scotland reported his BMW car stolen after his friends, who had borrowed the car to go and attend a Stone Roses gig at Etihad Stadium, Manchester, parked it in a multi-storey car parking and couldn't locate it afterwards.

The owner and his friends searched for the vehicle for the next five days before giving up. Later the owner contacted the local council and various companies in a bid to locate the vehicle. He finally reported that his car was stolen.

The vehicle was found six months later, exactly at the place where it was parked originally. The owner was charged parking fine of over £5,000 ($6618.85 as of today), reported the Manchester Evening News.