My Classic Car I Had For Hours Was Stolen And Crashed In A Hit And Run

This whole post is entirely hard to write but looking for advice. I flaired this as insurance but I guess it’s also criminal and civil - I’ve never dealt with anything like this.

Back in September I had my father in law’s 1996 Porsche 993 C2 shipped from the east to west coast. It’s been in the family for 30 years and he always intended to gift to us, and hopefully I pass it along to the grandkids. Completely stock, sub 100K miles, great condition. Needed some brake work as we loaded it onto Intercity for the cross country trip.

The trip took longer than expected, but arrived just fine. I have nothing but great things to say about Intercity.

Because of the brake issue, the car was driven only a handful of miles: first to home from the unload, for smog and then the DMV. Then to a recommended shop for a once over and to deal with the brakes.

While the car was at the garage, an employee stole the car, went on a 300+ mile joyride and ended up committing a hit and run, then presumably limping the car back to the garage where he ultimately got caught. WTF steals a car that is in the shop for a brake issue?

The garage is cooperating fine, the owner is devastated, police reports filed, insurance adjuster is coming Monday. The car is in bad shape: from passenger side panel is gone, headlight, hood and door a bit. Rim is cracked.

I’m not sure where to go next, like retaining a property damage attorney in case the car isn’t made whole or things go sidewise – I’m not dealing with a 2020 Outback.

Advice? Anyone else been through anything similar regarding damage to your classic car? The dollar value of the car is somewhere between $50k and $100k, which I realize is important but not what is really important to us. I’m trying to put aside the emotional parts of this but I’m so pissed that I can only laugh at the whole thing. What makes me the maddest was I wasn’t the one to drive it over 100k.This whole post is entirely hard to write but looking for advice.

Location: California.