KEY POINTS:
An Auckland man is offering a "large" reward after a car worth more than $300,000 was stolen from his business warehouse in an elaborate theft that has baffled police.
Company director Paul Tweedie, 42, should be preparing his 1990 Nissan Skyline GTR for test runs at Pukekohe today before racing in the upcoming Super GT series.
Instead, he's dealing with police and his insurance company after the car, which was painstakingly built by hand over more than four years, was stolen in a well-organised burglary on November 8.
Police investigating the theft say more than one person was involved and that the burglars may be part of a "professional" ring which has seen motorsport thefts this year tally into the vicinity of $1 million.
The burglars have climbed into Mr Tweedie's Penrose warehouse roof and walked along 8-10m high rafters to avoid an alarm system which has since been upgraded.
The burglars used Mr Tweedie's tools to grind out a hole in a steel-clad roller door to exit the building. But not before taking the car's spare parts which were housed in another room. They also broke into another area to cut power to an electric fence so they could drive the car away and topped up with $500 worth of specialist racing fuel valued at $5 a litre before fleeing. "It's a large place. They would have had to know where they were going because it wasn't that accessible," Mr Tweedie said.
The car's specialty components included a Holinger sequential racing gear box worth $25,000, V8 supercar brakes, MoTeC electronics and data-logging equipment and a 1000 horsepower engine.
Only between 10 and 20 of the car's original parts have been kept. Thousands more were specially made.
"It was just something I was sort of wanting to do," Mr Tweedie said. "It's not very nice. It has shocked me that it actually happened ... it's quite devastating, especially because the amount of time sort of exceeds the amount of money you put into it too ... it's not just a matter of going out and buying it, you know, because it's just not possible." Mr Tweedie said he was scouring auction websites and had alerted as many people in the racing industry as he could.
He was also offering "a large reward" for the "recovery of the car or information leading to the recovery of the car".
Anyone with information on the theft is asked to contact Detective Sergeant Grant Tetzlaff on (09) 526 7326 or Paul Tweedie on 0274 929 988.
