There’s something fascinating about cars found in murky waters after they’ve sat undiscovered for years. This sort of thing has been happening a lot lately thanks in part to more advanced technologies. One of the latest examples is a Nissan 240SX found in a Virginia lake.
Guy driving a Chrysler 300 thinks he can outrun Arkansas troopers.
Virginia State Police Search and Rescue located the vehicle in the muddy waters of Lake Gaston not too far from a boat landing. Oftentimes, criminals use ramps to get cars further out into a body of water, so that’s not unusual at all.
Police say the 1990 Nissan 240SX was reported stolen out of Ft. Liberty, North Carolina (called Ft. Bragg back then) on July 4, 1992. Talk about having a bad Independence Day with your car getting stolen.
The search and rescue team wasn’t actually looking for the Nissan or any other vehicle. Instead, they were in Lake Gaston doing a training exercise when the side-sonar equipment picked up the submerged vehicle.
At least the team got a little hands-on experience retrieving a submerged car and the hazard is now out of the water. But the Nissan is a little worse for wear. And when a vehicle has been underwater for that long, just days after being retrieved they’ll start rusting like crazy everywhere, so it’s likely sitting in a junk yard and is essentially worthless.
Every time we cover a story about a car being pulled out of a lake, river, or any body of water there’s a chorus of people saying it’s insurance fraud. Sometimes it is, but sometimes thieves steal cars, use them to commit other crimes, then dump them in water to destroy evidence.
But with improving technology, we wonder if that practice will be as common in the future. After all, vehicles are being found in bodies of water almost constantly now.
Images via Virginia State Police/Facebook
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[…] can’t count the number of submerged and later discovered car stories we’ve seen over the years. And while it’s anecdotal, it sure seems like an […]