More Motat cars on missing list

This 1936 Chrysler is missing. Picture / Brett Phibbs

An old Studebaker, a 1929 truck and a Model T Ford flatbed have all disappeared from an Auckland museum - and the list of vanished vehicles is probably a lot longer.

Carrick Brown of Epsom, who is trying to track down the 1936 Chrysler his family donated to Motat more than 30 years ago, has had plenty of calls since he told his story in the Weekend Herald last week.

Bombay man Ross Haynes said his family donated a 1929 Reo truck to the museum 42 years ago.

It had been used to pull a mobile supermarket and had signs painted on the doors. He and his brother were trying to trace the truck.

Waitakere City councillor and former Mayor Assid Corban said his family gave a 1937 or 1938 Studebaker to Motat about the same time Mr Brown's family donated their Chrysler.

When he later inquired after the car, the museum was vague.

"They said they took it to storage in Kumeu and they told me maybe it got stolen or was given away. I was very upset about that because I would have given it to a car club instead. It was a nice-looking car."

Mr Corban also donated an old 1924 Dodge van used in the family's vineyard business but he took it back when he realised the vehicle was being left out in the rain.

Don Moore, of Whakatane, said he was hunting a Model T Ford flatbed truck, given to Motat by his grandfather in the late 1960s or early 70s.

"I just wonder how many vehicles have gone missing and what's gone on," he said.

One vintage car enthusiast, who did not want to be named, said he bought a rare vintage car two years ago but when he took a photo of it to his vintage car club, another member told him it was originally a Motat car.

He was asked "how the hell" he had obtained the car, but said he had no idea it had been at the museum.

Another vintage car enthusiast, who worked at Motat in the 1980s, confirmed that cars and engine parts regularly went "missing", particularly after two storage sites for spare exhibits were closed, at Kumeu and Sylvia Park near the Mt Wellington motorway interchange.

But nothing was ever proved and no one had their membership of the museum cancelled.

"There are some characters who would do things for their own gain," he told the Weekend Herald.

Motat director Jeremy Hubbard said the museum had more stringent rules in place now and would contact donors before exhibits were "de-accessioned".