Over the weekend, a Victorville, California, Sheriff’s Deputy made a major break in a stolen car case. Now normally this would not be any great shakes in the news world, and especially not for Chevy Fans, but in this particular case it was the cherry red 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle used in the movie “Pulp Fiction.” The iconic Chevelle Malibu driven in the film by John Travolta’s character, Vince Vega, had been stolen during the production of the film and had gone missing for nearly two decades.

As reported in the San Bernardino Sun, “Deputy (Carlos) Arrieta did a really good job with this case,” said Sgt. Albert Anolin of the Sheriff’s Victorville station. “He took what many would have seen as a minor case and followed it through until it broke this much larger case. Arrieta saw two men stripping an older Chevrolet Malibu near an elementary school on April 18 around 7:45 p.m., and approached them. When he ran the vehicle identification number (VIN), he learned it was registered to a Malibu in the Oakland area. One of the men insisted the Malibu had been his since the 1970s.

Arrieta called in the San Bernardino County Auto Theft Task Force and handed the investigation over to the district attorney’s office and the California Highway Patrol. Investigators later learned the VIN for the Chevelle found in Victorville legitimately belonged to that car, but it hadn’t been registered with the state Department of Motor Vehicles for several decades. Detectives then contacted police in the Oakland to let them know the VIN was a match for a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu in their area.

Oakland investigators contacted the owner of that Malibu and learned the vehicle had a cloned VIN on it. Upon further investigation it was revealed that the Malibu found in the Bay Area was in fact Tarantino’s vehicle stolen in 1994. The man that had Tarantino’s Malibu is believed to not be involved in the theft and is being considered a victim of fraud. The car was recovered just a few weeks after Tarantino’s 50th birthday, but it’s not yet known if it has been returned to him as of this report.