In 2013, a Los Angeles man’s VW Beetle vanished; one stranger sent a photo, and another used Google Street View to find it five days later

In April 2013, Jason Torchinsky walked outside his Los Angeles home and discovered that his yellow 1973 Volkswagen Beetle was missing. He had owned the car since he was 18 and had kept it for more than a decade, making its disappearance particularly distressing. At first, he wondered whether it had been towed, but he soon realised that the vehicle had been stolen. What followed was an unusual internet-assisted search that used a single photograph, a handful of visual clues and Google Street View to locate the missing car within five days.According to KSL News, the search ended five days after Torchinsky discovered his Beetle was missing, when reader Mike sent him the location he had identified using Google Maps. Torchinsky travelled to the spot in El Sereno and found his 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, but the car had been heavily stripped. Its headlights, luggage rack, radio and engine were missing, with the total damage estimated at $3,000.A photograph becomes a location puzzleThe photo did not show a street address. Instead, it depicted the Beetle parked beside a mint-green house, which was surrounded by a white wrought-iron fence. There was a blue Toyota FJ Cruiser in the vicinity and a unique hillside in the background. These details gave Mike the clues he needed to narrow down the location using Google Maps and Street View.He compared Los Angeles streets with the photograph, looking for the surrounding features rather than searching for the Beetle itself. He focused on the shape of the hillside, the house and the parked vehicle. After about 30 minutes of searching, he found a location that appeared to match the photograph.The blue FJ Cruiser provided an additional confirmation that he had found the right place. Google describes Street View as a collection of panoramic imagery captured from vehicles travelling through public areas. The images are associated with geographic locations, allowing users to explore streets virtually rather than simply viewing them on a conventional map.The stolen Beetle was still thereAccording to Jason Torchinsky’s account in Jalopnik, the search ended five days after he discovered his Beetle was missing, when the reader who had identified the location sent him the address. Torchinsky travelled to the spot and found his 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, but the car had been heavily stripped. Its headlights, roof rack, radio and engine were missing, while other parts of the vehicle had also been damaged. Despite its condition, the discovery meant that the car he had owned since he was 18 had finally been located.The recovery was possible because several independent sources of information came together. The online appeal from Torchinsky spread the description of the car, while the photograph provided evidence about the location to which the Beetle had been taken, and Mike was able to use this information to locate it. This task was closer to solving a geography puzzle than searching for a car.An early example of crowdsourced sleuthingTorchinsky’s Beetle case also showed how online communities can help solve a puzzle that initially seemed to offer little to go on. It was not necessary to use any high-tech police computer database or a vehicle tracking system. What helped was the information each person contributed: one shared photographs and details about the car, another had taken pictures of it, and Mike realised the backdrop could be matched with Street View images.However, there was one critical limitation about the technology too. It is important to note that Google’s Street View is not live surveillance; Google says the imagery is captured at specific times and may differ from what is physically there when someone later visits. In Torchinsky's situation, the imagery was just sufficient to help the person find the street.The stolen 40-year-old Volkswagen came with only a few clues: its colour, a house, the slope of a hill, and another car parked nearby. But a stranger who investigated all these clues was able to pinpoint the exact location where the owner recovered his car within an hour spent browsing around the streets of Los Angeles via Street View. This has often been cited as an example of how ordinary online tools can have unexpected uses.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.