{"id":423776,"date":"2026-05-12T11:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/423776\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:07:13","slug":"stolen-1965-ford-thunderbird-found-in-gisborne-garage-a-week-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/423776\/","title":{"rendered":"Stolen 1965 Ford Thunderbird found in Gisborne garage a week later"},"content":{"rendered":"

He made Facebook posts about the car after it was taken from a garage behind a locked gate<\/a> at a vacant property for sale on Palmerston Rd. <\/p>\n

Tilley said the family were delighted to get back a piece of their history, albeit in damaged condition.<\/p>\n

Purchased in the 1970s, the car belonged to his father, who died in 1998, and mother. It has a distinctive registration \u2013 BIRD65.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really stoked that it\u2019s been found and it\u2019s been returned and we want to thank the Gisborne community for all their help and the Gisborne police for their help in the recovery of it. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs it was uninsured, it\u2019s a really big relief to have it back with the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tilley said the car was found on Monday \u2013 a week after it was stolen. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe police are undertaking a forensic examination of the vehicle,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s damaged. Some parts have been taken off it. The rear lights are gone, and it\u2019s damaged along the side of the car and the doors don\u2019t shut. The hub caps are missing and obviously registration plates and everything are missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have to restore it and get it back to drivable condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The car\u2019s future was yet to be decided. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, being in the family for a long time, whether somebody wants to take on the job of restoring it or whether we sell it, I\u2019m not sure,\u201d Tilley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just going to have to reassess.\u201d <\/p>\n

He was grateful to all the people who helped after the car was reported missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really want to reiterate we want to thank everybody for their help and assistance in providing information about sightings of it and where it could be, and also the Gisborne police.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He made Facebook posts about the car after it was taken from a garage behind a locked gate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9331,215614,665,35593,2026,4480,6210,1874,71,45565,12506,78,685,9933,111,43,139,69,4736,119493,686,16550],"class_list":["post-423776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-chance","tag-215614","tag-around","tag-convertible","tag-discovery","tag-drive","tag-ford","tag-found","tag-from","tag-garage","tag-gisborne","tag-in","tag-last","tag-later","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-stolen","tag-thunderbird","tag-week","tag-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}