He’s Finally Driven to Claim Car

--Twenty years seems like plenty of time for the owner of a 1949 Cadillac sedan to claim his car, so John Davis has decided it’s finally finders keepers. The car was parked in the garage, keys in the ignition, when Davis bought his house in Kansas City, Mo., in 1965. “I had to pump a little air into the tires when they got low, but it’s still mostly the original air in there,” Davis said. “And it still starts up immediately. I had it started up about six or seven months ago, and it popped right on,” he said after filing a court claim for the car this week. If the claim is approved, the car will have cost Jackson $65 for the filing fee. The Cadillac has 3,836 miles on its odometer and is estimated to be worth $4,000 to $6,000. The previous owner of the house said the auto may have belonged to a former tenant, Davis said. Davis won’t be driving his new wheels around town. He has been blind for 15 years. At first, he said, “I figured on getting storage fees for it. But, whoever owns it had plenty of time to come see me about it.”

--A 55-year-old Texas millionaire who became the oldest man ever to scale Mt. Everest said his April 30 conquest of the world’s highest mountain was a celebration of life after age 50. “It was the fulfillment of an achievement and an ambition,” Dallas businessman Dick Bass told reporters at a news conference in Katmandu, Nepal, where he arrived after the trek back from the 29,028-foot mountain. Bass was accompanied by a Sherpa guide and film maker David Braeshears, 29, of Newton, Mass. Braeshears, who climbed Everest in 1983, became the first American to climb the peak twice. For Bass, the feat completed his “Seven Summits Odyssey,” a pledge made in 1983 to climb the highest peaks on seven continents.

--The French have lost their taste for the pouting sexiness of Brigitte Bardot and want her replaced as the model for “Marianne,” the feminine symbol of the Republic. Most French people would prefer to see the more classic features of actress Catherine Deneuve represented in the stone busts that decorate French town halls, according to a national opinion poll. Culture Minister Jack Lang has promised a competition to decide what a new “Marianne” should look like. “Marianne,” whose bonneted head first appeared in town halls in 1877, has worn the features of Bardot since the 1960s. Commenting on the 50-year-old Bardot’s fall from grace, the newspaper Le Monde said: “The choice of Catherine Deneuve reflects a return to classicism, the feminine woman has replaced the sex symbol.” Runners-up included Princess Caroline of Monaco and singers Mireille Mathieu and Sylvie Vartan.