As much as the founder of the San Bernardino-based Juan Pollo restaurant chain valued being the self-described “chicken man,” he appeared equally passionate about nostalgia.
In a nod to the McDonald’s hamburger franchise serving as an inspiration to his career, Albert Okura built a McDonald’s museum on the site of its original restaurant in San Bernardino in 1998. In 2005, Okura dreamed bigger, purchasing the abandoned mining town of Amboy on Route 66 in the San Bernardino County desert for $425,000 with hopes of restoring it.
And along the way, Okura again reached back into yesterday, acquiring the 1955 Dodge Coronet that the family says was driven by actor Broderick Crawford in the 1950s TV show “Highway Patrol.”
“It was one of my dad’s prized cars,” son Kyle Okura said Friday, Dec. 27. “I think he liked it because it was from the show and it had that vintage look to it. It was kind of a symbol of Americana.”
But, sadly, someone else apparently valued the car as well: The four-door black-and-white was stolen from the Juan Pollo headquarters on J Street on Christmas.
The San Bernardino Police Department has assigned a detective to the case, Capt. Nelson Carrington said.
San Bernardino Mayor Helen Tran sits inside a 1955 Dodge Coronet at the Community Ho Ho Parade in Dec. 2024 as Kyle Okura stands at right. The car, owned by the Okura family that operates the Juan Pollo chicken restaurant chain, was stolen on Christmas. (Courtesy of Kyle Okura)
Why anyone would steal a car that could easily be spotted was a mystery to Kyle Okura, 31, who became president of Juan Pollo and its 25 restaurants upon his father’s death in 2023 at age 71. He theorized that with the business closed on the holiday, someone saw an opportunity for a joy ride.
“I don’t think it was per se targeted because of what they thought it was worth,” Okura said.
The car was one of several that company employees drove in parades. San Bernardino Mayor Helen Tran was a passenger in it during this year’s Community Ho Ho Parade.
Bloggers and podcast hosts have compiled lists of the most famous television and movie crime-fighting vehicles. The rolls, depending on how broadly that description is interpreted, often include the “Starsky & Hutch” 1976 Ford Gran Torino, the Batmobile, the Plymouths driven by LAPD officers Reed and Malloy in “Adam-12” from 1968-75 and the burgundy Jaguar Mark 2 from the British detective show Inspector Morse that ran from 1987 to 2000.
The Highway Patrol car was not on the lists reviewed Friday, but the Okuras probably don’t care.
Albert Okura poses in front of the McDonald’s Museum he opened in 1998 in a 2019 photo. Nostalgia was important to Okura, who founded the Juan Pollo chicken restaurant chain and died in 2013. His family inherited from him a 1955 Dodge Coronet that was stolen on Dec. 25, 2024. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
For them, the car, like the Amboy project, holds sentimental value above all else.
They have been operating the gas station in Amboy since 2008. Tourists, especially those from outside the United States, veer off the 40 Freeway to make the pilgrimage to the town with no residents. The site is also rented out for movie shoots.
The family hopes to open the motel cottages and cafe in 2026, Okura said. The work has made more progress in the past five years than it did in the first 20, he said.
“For my dad, it’s also part of his childhood,” Okura said. “He told us, never sell it. You will never have an opportunity (again) to own a town. For me, it’s something that me and my dad held very dear and kept us close. We bonded.”
In the meantime, Okura hopes to get the Coronet back. Police are looking at surveillance images of the theft on Christmas, said Carrington, the police captain.
“It seemed like a very Grinch-like thing to do,” Okura said.
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