At the end of last year, an interesting event took place in the Finnish city of Turku (In Finnish, the genitive of Turku is Turun), which had a Saab 900 (made in Uusikaupunki) at the center of the story. The banks of the Aura River in Turku are used by local citizens for gatherings, cycling, playing chess on benches, and sometimes some of the citizens bravely dare to swim. In early December last year, many of them were surprised when a car was pulled from the bottom of the Aura River – a fairly well-preserved Saab 900.
According to police, The car was originally spotted with a sonar, and for safety reasons it was decided to lift it off as soon as possible. “There is no information on how the car got into the river, but it has probably been there for a few years”, the inspector of the Turku City said after the lifting operation.
After the lifting operation, the whole story about this car surfaced. By no means did the car accidentally end up in the Aura River. The car had apparently been at the river bottom for some years. According to police findings, this is a car stolen in Turku – a crime report was made about the theft several years ago.
The owner of the car is known to the police, so the police started a further investigation. The sinking of stolen cars is not uncommon, but their finding in the river is a rare case. “Usually, what the sea hides stays there. Yes, there are certainly more cars at the bottom of the waterways, and this one just happened to be found now. As such, it is rare to find these, as I don’t remember a stolen car being dug from the Aura River before”, said the local inspector on this occasion.
That model dates from the late 1980s or the early 1990s at the latest. The age of the car in a case like this doesn’t amaze the police as much as if it were a newer model. Car theft as a type of crime has significantly decreased because cars are so well protected today. Hijacking new cars is not easy and is starting to be a vanishing folklore. The current technology of cars has changed the type of crime.
According to a usually reliable source (a Radio City DJ), the Saab engine had started at the first turn of the ignition key, and “the c-tape player had started playing Finnhits“…. Probably the story was exaggeration, though, at least the tape player part.
