Police close cold car case

Police in the Marne are hoping to return a car to its rightful owner nearly 40 years after it was reported stolen.

The Peugeot 104 was reported stolen from Reims in 1979 and was found last week in a muddy lake in Chalons-en-Champagne, 160km east of Paris, Franceinfo reports.

The owner of the pond alerted police after the vehicle emerged from the water due to ongoing drought conditions, police revealed in a post on their Facebook page. Divers checked that there was no corpse inside the car before it was towed back to dry land.

A trawl of the archives led officers the car's last registered owner, who still lives in the department. She has been contacted, police said, along with the car's insurers.