This is not the car, though it was a Passat. Photo credit VW

One time in Brooklyn I walked to where I thought I’d left my car only to find that the street was empty and that every car had been towed for a film shoot. About 15 minutes into an angry conversation with the police, I found it; the car was sitting where I’d actually left it, about 100 feet from where I thought it was. “Officer, you won’t believe this, but I’m dumbass,” I explained. This is nothing compared to this guy in Germany who forgot about and lost his car for 20 years.


The car, according to Metro, was a Volkswagen Passat, which the man, now 76, had reported it missing in 1997 after parking it in a garage in Frankfurt and forgetting about it. Recently, while the garage was in the process of being demolished, the Passat, was rediscovered though now inoperable, according to Augsburger Allgemeine.

Courtesy of Google Translate, here is how you write local news (I have no idea if this translation is any good but I love it nonetheless):

That’s 20 years ago and at some point everyone makes peace. One begins to forget and only sometimes secretly thinks about where the car might turn its laps today. And one day the police call. The car is back. Or rather, it was never gone. For two decades, it was exactly the place where his driver once parked it. In the garage of an industrial building, it was rusting soundlessly. And that would probably have continued for a while, the house would not have been released for demolition. Only now did the forgotten car gain new attention. When reunited, however, the now 76-year-old owner had to realize that old love just rusts. So there was little reason to start the old cart again. Her last trip led to the junkyard.


This is all very true. My car, also, was never gone, both on the street and in my heart.