LOGAN SQUARE — When Lyndon French took his classic 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass out of storage for maintenance at Damen Auto Repairs, he never imagined his prized ride would turn up missing — and from an entirely different auto shop.
But more than a month after what French thought would be a quick fix, what happened to the car remains a mystery, and both auto shops are pointing fingers at the other.
Now the 30-year-old photographer and picture framer wonders if he'll ever see his classic car again — or if the situation will be resolved in time for the summer cruising season, the only time he drives the car.
Linze Rice breaks down what the auto shops are saying about the theft:
French, of Logan Square, took the car to get a window fixed and an alignment at the auto repair shop at 1743 N. Damen Ave. on March 21 after reading reviews on Yelp.
When French left the keys, he said he left a stern warning: Make sure the car stays inside overnight.
“I told the dude, ‘Under no circumstances can this car ever be left outside,’” French recalled in an interview with DNAinfo Chicago. “Maybe I didn’t say, ‘Because it’ll get stolen,’ but like, I insinuated and he knew, because it’s a classic car.”
French said he was assured the car would remain in good hands and under a watchful eye, and in a few days he'd receive a call back with a quote on how much the work would cost.
But French said he never received a follow-up phone call. When he called a few days later, he said he was told then the shop was looking for parts.
After a week, French again called and was told they'd located the necessary parts, but it would take several more days for them to be shipped and reach the store, he said.
“It all sounded reasonable to me because the car is so old, so finding parts for it can be difficult,” French said.
But French never heard anything back. Fed up, French said he called Damen Auto on April 9, now nearly three weeks after dropping it off. Someone told him to come by the following day to test drive the car.
Shocking News
But before he got there on April 10, he said someone from Damen Auto finally called him with shocking news: The car was gone.
And it was missing not from Damen Auto, but from Pep Boys, at 2604 N. Elston Ave.
The worker told him, "‘Look, I don’t really know what’s going on, we took your car to Pep Boys, and they’re saying it’s missing, and they want the owner present to get back the keys because they won’t give them back to us,’” French recalled.
The person on the phone told French they'd already called police, and urged him to come to Damen Auto so they could drive to Pep Boys and sort everything out.
French said he hurried to the shop, but could feel an air of strangeness about the situation.
“It just all sounded weird,” he said.
When he arrived, the owner of the shop confirmed what French had been told earlier on the phone: His car was missing from Pep Boys. French said he became furious when he learned the car had been missing since April 9 — the same day he had been told to come pick up the car.
“That’s when I proceeded to be very mad and just started f------ screaming,” French said.
Chicago Police confirmed officers were called about the situation at 3 p.m. on April 10 by French. When officers arrived, they spoke with workers at Damen Auto, then headed to Pep Boys.
At Pep Boys, managers told police the car had been dropped off on March 30, nine days after French left it in Damen Auto's care. Pep Boys employees told police they noticed it missing April 9.
A Pep Boys employee — who declined to give his name during a phone interview with DNAinfo Chicago — said the store never did any work on the car. The employee maintained that someone from his shop called Damen Auto back within two hours after the car was dropped off and told them they would be unable to service the car.
“We called Damen Auto up immediately and said, ‘Listen, it’s an '83; we don’t have any of the specifications to align this vehicle, come pick it up,’” said the worker.
Leo Dirim, the owner of Damen Auto, however, denies his shop was ever called.
Pep Boys "didn’t call to say they couldn’t work on it,” Dirim said. “Why would we leave the car there? That’s something funny right there.”
Workers from both Damen Auto and Pep Boys both said it's not uncommon for small shops to outsource certain services, like the alignment French was told he needed. Asked why Damen Auto didn't tell French the car was taken to Pep Boys, Dirim said he wasn't obligated to do so.
“Once a customer gives us the OK to fix it, we can take it anywhere,” Dirim said.
French disagreed. He said he was clear about his wishes regarding his car.
“Why did it sit outside at Pep Boys' parking lot when I specifically told the guy to never leave the car outside?” he said. “I only gave the car to [Damen Auto], and didn’t give consent for them to take it anywhere else, so Damen Auto is the shop held responsible.”
Forgotten Car
The worker said his shop simply forgot the car was at its lot, even though a manager business next door told DNAinfo Chicago that he noticed the car sitting there "for at least a week."
“I’m the second-busiest [Pep Boys] store in the nation. I go through so many cars in this lot,” he said. “So when they came by here, they parked it off to the side of the lot, so we just kinda forgot about it. We basically never touched the car from where they dropped it off.”
He also said the lot's security cameras do not extend to the part of the lot where French's car was parked.
Now, the search is on for French's black and gray classic car.
Police said detectives have no leads on what happened to the car, but officers are canvassing the area, looking for video surveillance footage from other businesses or other leads.
French isn't optimistic.
“It’s slightly possible [the car] will still show up, but I don’t think it will because it’s not like a regular car that someone would steal for a specific part and just leave it on the street," French said. "It’s a collector car.”
Dirim said he believes the car was probably taken on a "joy ride" — something that happens frequently to his customers.
“Maybe [whoever stole it] took a joy ride. Who knows?” he said, explaining his customers often bring their vehicles to him for lock changes after they've been stolen. “Police will find this car, I guarantee it. If I have to pay out of my own pocket, he’ll get paid.”
Pep Boys has no plans to get involved or share in the replacement costs. The company isn't "able to do that at headquarters here," said a spokeswoman at the company's headquarters in Philadelphia.
“We don’t have a comment because this car was never a customer of Pep Boys,” she said. “The owner contracted with Damen, so it circles back to Damen.”
French, who said the car is worth $13,000, is adamant about being compensated for the lost car.
But he'd really prefer to find the car which he bought from a friend a year ago. He said he and his girlfriend had their first date in the car, at the Sonic Drive-In at 1022 W. Wilson Ave. in Uptown.
He said "it's kinda cheesy to be taking a classic car on a date," but he knew the relationship might have promise because they were both able to laugh at what they were doing.
"We both found humor in taking that car to a Sonic, so the car played into it, as a we both have similar humor," French said. When she laughed, but still showed an appreciation for the car, "I was like 'cool.'"
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