“Someone wanted this car to sink quickly,” says Tobias Wirth. All the windows of the sports car are intact and closed, explains the deputy chief of the police inspection in Vohenstrauß, Upper Palatinate, only the window on the driver’s side was rolled down. “It wasn’t an accident. This car should go away.” That’s exactly what happened and with the masses of water, huge amounts of mud and animals got into the interior of the car. “A colleague climbed into the car. He was attacked by a couple of crayfish.”
The little animals also had plenty of time to make themselves at home in the Audi 100 Coupé S. A month and a half ago, the car wreck in the Pfreimdstausee in Tännesberg (Neustadt an der Waldnaab district) was discovered with a sonar device during renovation work and recovered by police divers. Since then, the police have been trying to find out who owned the car. And why someone deliberately dumped it in the reservoir – probably 40 years ago.
At first they were euphoric. Everything is still on the car, even the number plate (from Schwandorf) and the TÜV sticker (with an expiry date of January 1980). “A gmahde Wiesn”, thought Wirth. “The meadow wasn’t that easy to mow after all.” At the district office in Schwandorf, all documents from that time have long since been destroyed – for data protection reasons. They also tried it at Audi, because the car is not an everyday model. Only about 30,000 were produced between 1968 and 1976. But there too: none.
“We’re at our wit’s end, so we’ve now turned to the general public.” Because the police are sure that nobody just wanted to dispose of their scrap. “There are no signs of an accident. The car was maybe four years old.” And expensive. At the time, you had to shell out around 14,000 German marks for such a car. “That was quite a chunk of money. Why should someone dump it in the water without an emergency? The car was probably still registered at the time.” Maybe to cover up a crime. “In any case, we don’t rule that out. Maybe even a capital crime.”
A classic car fan has already viewed the wreck
A sleek, light yellow sports car with a lowered rear: the police are now counting on such a car to be remembered. “The peak reached 185 kilometers per hour. That was a lot for the time. You were the boss on the road,” says Wirth. Especially in the area. There have always been many expensive cars on the road in and around Munich. In the rural Upper Palatinate in the 1970s and 1980s, a yellow coupé must have attracted attention. “We hope that someone remembers, acquaintances or neighbors who drove such a car. Or a previous Audi dealer who sold such a car.”
Since the police went public, the telephone in the infirmary in otherwise rather tranquil Vohenstrauß has been ringing every five minutes. “My colleague is on the phone around the clock,” says Wirth. It’s not at all the case that cars are never found in Bavaria’s waters, even fairly old ones. “But that’s exotic. It would be different if we had fished out a VW Beetle of which there are millions.” For a rusted Audi Coupé, on the other hand, people who are interested come from further afield. “A classic car fan drove 50 kilometers to see the wreck at our place.”
And then there are the inconsistencies. The missing signs of an accident, the lowered window, the TÜV sticker. “My police gut tells me something stinks.” He doesn’t have any concrete criminal cases in mind yet, says Wirth. You work through all the clues first. For others, the imagination is already running at full speed. The hobby inspectors cavort in the comment columns of the local newspapers and on Facebook: Weiden’s “red light king” Walter Klankermeier is remembered. But that probably doesn’t fit the time. Because he was murdered in 1982, the car was probably already lying on the bottom of the reservoir. And the girl Monika Frischholz from Flossenbürg? But that disappeared in 1976. The suspicions end with: “You’re all so smart, apply to the police.”