Man hell-bent on getting back late father's classic car facing potential $181,000 court fine

An Indiana man hell-bent on recovering a classic car he contends was stolen from his father 52 years ago is facing more than long odds.

Now, the East Coast vintage car dealer who has the rare vehicle is seeking a huge legal judgment against Trent Doran.

It’s a David-and-Goliath fight, but even the long shot isn't enough to make Doran back off his quest to reclaim the Arnolt-Bristol Bolide his father purchased in 1961.

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The fight is playing out in a federal courthouse in Connecticut, where Norwalk-based car dealer Matthew deGarmo sued for a declaration that he is now the car’s rightful owner. The dealer also sought $300,000 in damages from Doran for allegedly harming the dealer’s reputation and interfering in his attempts to sell the Arnolt-Bristol.

Doran, who lives in Burket in Kosciusko County, has been raising questions about the legitimacy of deGarmo’s ownership in vintage car forums and other online sites.

He chose not to respond to the federal lawsuit filed in October 2016 and deGarmo wants the court to issue a default judgment in his favor.

The dealer’s most recent request, filed Sept. 9, asks for the court to order Doran to pay deGarmo $181,000 — the difference between what deGarmo paid for the car in 2013 and a $400,000 sale he claims was scuttled by Doran’s interference.

Doran says he doesn’t have the money to hire a lawyer to defend himself in the case, and is counting on what he sees as indisputable facts to clear him in the legal fight.

“I’ve told the truth,” Doran said. “And he knows I’m right.”

Brendan O’Rourke, an attorney representing deGarmo, did not respond to a request for comment from IndyStar.

The dispute over Arnolt-Bristol “3038” — the unique cars are known by their body serial number — goes back to 1965, and started long before Doran or deGarmo were in the picture.

The two-seater is one of just 142 of the hand-built roadsters made from 1954 to 1961, and only about half of them survive today. The Arnolt-Bristol sported a body by Bertone built over a Bristol 404 frame and drive train that included a 2-liter engine based on a BMW design.

The cars sold new for about $4,500 and can now fetch several hundred thousand dollars, but Doran insists that is not why he’s refusing to give up the fight. He claims it all comes down to principle — and a promise to get the car back that he made to his father who died in 2015.

Despite the cars’ decidedly European heritage, they were finished and sold from an unlikely location: Warsaw, Ind. The rare roadster’s connection to the state came from its namesake, Hoosier industrialist Stanley H. “Wacky” Arnolt, a Chicago native who headed a wide-ranging manufacturing business based in Warsaw.

The influence of the little-known car’s design — which an editor for Sports Car Illustrated described as “both poetry and sculpture in metal” — can still be seen in the design of sports cars from the Shelby Cobra to the Chevrolet Corvette.

Marshall “Brooke” Doran, like a lot of GIs serving in Europe after World War II, got his introduction to small sports cars during his tour of duty. And he got his first glimpse of an Arnolt-Bristol at the 1955 Paris Auto Show.

When it came time for Doran to ship home from France in 1956, he brought an Arnolt-Bristol back to Indiana with him. Despite the car’s racing lineage — and the fact it had no heater and only zip-in side windows — Doran used his Arnolt-Bristol almost daily for about a year to make the 120-mile round-trip commute from his home in South Bend to his job in Burket.

But on the weekends, he liked to put the Arnolt-Bristol through its paces in road races. It was at those races that Doran became better acquainted with Arnolt and his racing team, which was based at the Hoosier International dealership in Warsaw.

In 1961, as Doran got more into racing, he made a hard decision. He would sell the car he fell in love with in Paris. But Doran wasn’t abandoning Arnolt-Bristol. He replaced his red roadster with another Arnolt-Bristol that had been a spare car with the company’s race team — a car set up specifically for ripping around road courses.

His new Arnolt-Bristol, identified on its title as a 1961 model, was the 3038 car. By 1965, however, Doran was again in the hunt for a faster, more powerful car to race and he agreed to sell the 3038 to a man from New Jersey.

In a handshake deal, the new buyer gave Doran a small down payment and agreed to pay the rest in monthly installments. He took the car and Doran kept the title as security.

The buyer made a couple payments, then the checks stopped coming in the mail. Doran got a lawyer to write the man a couple of letters, but he didn’t respond. Later he learned the car had been resold and was in the hands of a collector in Europe, where it stayed for about 40 years.

Brooke Doran essentially gave up on getting the car back, but his son, Trent, took up the hunt — scanning race results, lists of car show exhibitors and collector forums on the internet.

In 2014, he learned deGarmo had purchased the car. Believing the 1961 Indiana title he still had made his family the rightful owner of the car, Doran reached out to deGarmo. Their first few exchanges were cordial, but the interactions quickly soured when Doran basically demanded deGarmo hand over the Arnolt-Bristol.

In court documents, deGarmo contends he purchased the car in good faith and Doran’s father surrendered any claim to the car when he failed to take any legal steps to enforce the 1965 sale agreement.

When deGarmo balked, Doran reached out to police in Connecticut to report the vintage car dealer was in possession of a stolen car. He posted statements on internet forums questioning the legitimacy of deGarmo’s ownership. Doran also raised questions about the new title for 3038 that the dealer had obtained using paperwork from the European owner who had sold the car to deGarmo for $219,000.

By last October, deGarmo had enough and filed the federal lawsuit against Doran. In court filings, deGarmo claimed Doran’s questions were harming his reputation and damaging his business. Ultimately, he claimed, Doran’s carping cost him a deal to sell the Arnolt-Bristol for $400,000.

The dispute is now in the hands of a federal judge. Legal experts told IndyStar that Doran’s claim on the car is weak, at best, but Doran is quick to point out stories of other cars stolen years earlier being returned to their owners.

But in court papers, attorneys for deGarmo contend Doran's father never reported the car stolen, and that it had a clear title when he purchased it in 2013. Doran said his father had instructed his attorney to file a report alleging the vehicle had been stolen, but its unclear if that ever happened. 

“Right now, I don’t know what’s next,” Doran said. “I guess it depends on how hard he comes at me.”

In the meantime, Doran said he wants to try to keep track of where the car is and just hopes his claim to Arnolt-Bristol 3038 will gain some traction.

“All I’ve ever done is told our story,” he explained. “All I’ve ever done is tell the truth and dig for the truth.”

Contact Tim Evans at (317) 444-6204 or tim.evans@indystar.com. Follow him on Twittter: @starwatchtim