After His Car Was Stolen, He Accidentally Bought It Back

The faint odor of old beer was one of the telltale clues that helped a UK man realize a remarkable truth: He had managed to buy back his own stolen car. As the BBC reports, Ewan Valentine paid upward of $26,000 for a used Honda Civic after his own Civic was stolen. He knew the cars were similar. But it was only after driving off the lot that he began to realize they were identical. A tent peg in the trunk. The gizmo to unlock lugnuts stored in a Tesco supermarket bag. "I'd also shattered a bottle of beer about a year before and could never quite get rid of the smell," he tells Birmingham Live.

After a check of the car's navigation system revealed the vehicle had regularly visited his own home and his girlfriend's, Valentine brought the car to a dealership that confirmed its vehicle identification number had been changed. The car was his original one. Now the police and his insurance company are investigating, though Valentine doesn't think the garage that sold him the car knew it had been stolen. But however it shakes out, Valentine is getting his money back. (More strange stuff stories.)