‘Only happens in Nantucket.' Mercedes G-Wagon mix-up delivers classic tale

Boston Globe

03-07-2025

It started when Alex Miccio, 43, lent his green 1985 Mercedes G-Wagon to the aunt and uncle of his longtime college friend
,
who has a place on the island.
The aunt and uncle were visiting for the July Fourth holiday, armed with a 'bunch of supplies'
and other friends, Miccio said, while he and his wife were heading home to Weston.
Advertisement
They parked at the grocery store lot, a short walk from the ferry terminal, and handed the keys to the arriving couple around 4 p.m.
He
explained to them how it was an older model that could be 'finicky.'
About 30 minutes after they boarded, Miccio got a call from his friend's uncle.
The car had started fine,
but an ignition light on the dashboard that Miccio had mentioned did not go off.
'As long as it's running, you should be all set, no worries,' Miccio reassured them.
About an hour later, Miccio texted the couple to see if they had made it to his friend's house.
'It wasn't nearly as hard to drive as you said it was,' the couple said, according to Miccio.
Advertisement
The next day, Miccio and his wife, Sofia, read a story about a stolen green Mercedes G-Wagon in the Nantucket Current,
'Wow, good thing I decided not to leave the keys in the car, and I handed them to them directly,' Miccio said. 'It might have been our G-Wagon that was taken.'
Miccio didn't think about his car again until Tuesday morning, when another friend on the island texted him a picture of it, still in the Stop & Shop parking lot.
His friend said he had also seen the car on Monday in the same spot.
'Well, that's weird,' Miccio recalled thinking. He texted his friend's aunt and asked if they had spent the night downtown. She said no, and that the car had been parked in the yard since they arrived at the house.
'It still hasn't dawned on me what's going on,' Miccio said.
He mentioned the 'really strange' situation to his wife.
'Oh my God, do you think they took the wrong G-Wagon,' she texted him.
'No way,' Miccio responded. 'There's no way that happened.'
That's when they remembered the report of the stolen G-Wagon. Miccio quickly called his friend's aunt to read him the car's license plate.
'I had a pit in my stomach when I made the call,' Miccio said.
His fears were realized. The aunt did not read a shortened version of the Lithuanian phrase for 'cheers,'
SVKATA, on Miccio's vanity license plate. Sofia had bought Miccio the car last year as a wedding present, and he said he used the license plate to honor her and her family's heritage.
Advertisement
Miccio realized that while he knew where his car was, someone else didn't.
'What are the chances of that happening,' Miccio thought to himself.
Miccio called the police and spoke to a detective who 'had a little chuckle,' he said.
The car was brought to the police station and returned to the owners.
'They were very courteous and understanding about the whole situation,' Miccio said of the
fellow G-Wagon owners.
'It was just a simple misunderstanding.'
Britney Touchette, 25, whose family owns the car, agreed it was an honest mistake.
When the car first went missing, the family was shocked, she said. They thought maybe it was hot wired by teenagers who drive cars to the dunes and leave them there.
But they biked out to the dunes and found nothing, and panic began to set in as they realized the house keys were also in the car, she said. On Tuesday morning, they called the locksmith.
Thankfully, the car was returned without a scratch, she said. The roof was up to protect it from the rain and the keys to Touchette's house were still in the same place. No need to change the locks, she said.
'This is so classic,' she said. 'We were all laughing. This only happens in Nantucket.'
Miccio said the two cars are both green and are older models with a fabric top.
The main difference is the 1991
car is newer with a recent paint job and a complete restoration with modern amenities, whereas Miccio's car has its 'original' paint job, he said.
'Any questions that they may have had in their mind about, 'Is this the right car?' ... were assuaged by the fact that when they turned the key, the car started right away, no issue,' Miccio said of his friend's family.
Advertisement
Nantucket is filled with vintage cars, Miccio said, especially G-Wagons.
'Nantucket is a haven for classic vehicles,' Miccio said. 'It's just a bad coincidence that they seemingly were parked near each other. It was just a real luck of the draw.'
Angus MacVicar of the Nantucket police department said he has never heard of a mix-up
like this in Nantucket but that police 'frequently' receive reports of people taking the wrong car when the keys are left inside the vehicle.
While older vehicles sometimes have ignition keys that are the same, the situation was 'highly unlikely,' he said.
Touchette said she and her family have since
bought multiple air tags for their car. Miccio said he would be 'more careful' when he identifies his car to people.
'I'm heading back there
for the weekend, and I'm sure we're gonna have a really big laugh about it when I see them,' Miccio said of his friend and the aunt and uncle.
Ava Berger can be reached at