Guess what I have?

eagle670
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Wed Jul 01, 2009 4:15 pm

If you see my pic, you can tell that it is a 1969 Chev Camaro. The interesting thing about this car is that I used to own it back in the late 70's. I decided in 2000 to try to see if I could find it and low and behold we found it about an hour from where I live. Drove there and made the guy an offer, bought it, restored it and now have a great time showing it and going to cruises. I have a lot of memories with that car. My wife and I dated in it. When I sold it I felt like a piece of my history went missing. They will have to bury me in that car along with my guitar.


haoli25
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Wed Jul 01, 2009 4:20 pm

I'm jealous! What a great car.

At one time I owned a 1969 Hemi-Charger/RT. I
would give up my life's savings to get that car
back again. (Although with current gas prices,
I couldn't afford to drive it! lol It only
got 8 mpg on the highway back in the early 70's)


eagle670
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Wed Jul 01, 2009 4:29 pm

If you have the VIN number you can run it down and maybe get lucky and find it like I did. I felt the same way when I sold it and I kicked myself on a daily basis


BigBear
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Wed Jul 01, 2009 5:11 pm

Congrats, man! That's even beter than finding an old girl friend unless of course she has a great balance sheet!:lol:


KennyF
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Thu Jul 02, 2009 2:18 am

Wow! That's awesome!!!


rcsnydley
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Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:08 am

If I wanted to find any old cars I had I'd only need to go as far as the local car graveyard. :cheer:

Ric


eagle670
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Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:39 am

That's what I thought had happen to mine, but I was curious to find out how many owners it had gone through before it died. As luck would have it was still alive and well.

The Kansas City Star did a feature story on the car and I am trying to get the link for you to view. In the mean time here is my write up what I did for the editor. I love sharing this story and I hope you enjoy reading it.


In 1977 I started college, met my future wife and bought a 1969 Camaro. I owned the car for just a couple of years, before selling it for a more reliable means of transportation. That’s the memory that haunted me for twenty-two years and I kicked myself on a regular basis forever letting that car get away from me. I’m sure that many guy’s can relate to this and that they too wished that they had kept or could find one the most prize possessions of their youth and restoring it to it’s original beauty. At this point you should ask yourself what are the chances of finding a car that was sold over 2 decades ago, especially a popular classic muscle car. Those odds would probably be somewhere around 1 in a million I would guess, but regardless of the odds I decided to take a shot at finding my old car, so in 2000 the quest began.

Right away I ran into a problem, because I had no documentation on the car. I tore up the house looking through my old files, searched my parents files, called the insurance agency, called the bank where I had gotten the loan to buy the car, but all efforts came up empty. This was very discouraging, because I knew that without the VIN number the search would become very difficult if not impossible. All I could come up with was a photograph of the car, which as luck would have it, had captured the license plate. The numbers were a little fuzzy, but with the help of my PC and a scanner I was able to magnify the image and obtain the plate numbers. It wasn’t much, but at least it was a start. I called MODOT in Jefferson City and they said that I would have to fill out a form and send it to them, they in turn would send me the results in 8 to 12 weeks. Well this time line was unacceptable, so I decided to take a more drastic measure and hired a private investigator. He told me about the vehicle searches that he had performed in the past. Most came up empty, but the ones that he did find were usually in different parts of the country. His initially thought was that a car this old was probably in the salvage yard and stripped for parts. Nevertheless I was determined and told him to move forward on the old license plate number.

Within a couple of weeks he had found the VIN number, along with a list of all the owners of the car after I had sold it. An encouraging sign was that the last owner of the car lived in St Joseph Missouri, but the car had not been license since 1988. The PI told me that he had spoke with the last owner, who said that he had kept it in storage for a few years, but had sold it about a year ago to an individual who he had no information on. Receiving this piece of news was disheartening to say the least, but at least I knew that the car was still on the road and the search had been narrowed to the St Joseph area.

A couple of months went by and one day I ran into a friend at the local hardware store. He knew that I was trying to find my old car and asked if I had had any luck. I told him the whole story and said that I was pretty sure that the car was still in St Joe, but I had not been able to track down the owner, because the car had not been recently licensed. My friend got a strange look on his face and said that a guy that he knew had been running parts up to St Joe and told him that he saw an orange and black 69 Camaro in the back of a body shop.

He gave me the number of the parts guy and I gave him a call. He told me that he had seen the car at the bodyshop, but it had been a couple weeks. He gave me the name of the body shop and I made the call. The owner said that he did have a 69 Camaro in the back, so I asked him if he would mind reading the VIN number to me. As he read me the numbers I checked each one of the off and when he told me that last number I just about fell out of my chair. I then asked him if he would mind if I came and took a look at it and since he did not object I made the hour long drive to St Joe. As I turned into the parking lot of the body shop, I could not believe my eyes. There before me was my old car. I knew immediately that it was mine because of the wiper scratch on the windshield. As I did a closer inspection and saw that the dash had been unchanged where my father and I had made some repairs and the memories came flowing back. I was surprised to see that the color and interior were the same, only aged by 22 years and believe me it had not aged gracefully. The floor pans were rusted out, the vinyl top had been removed, there was a hole in the roof, most of the body panels were shot and the transmission had been changed. The only thing good on the car was the engine, which the owner said had just been rebuilt.

Since the car was not really for sale I showed the guy some pictures of when I had owned the car and after some discussion I made him an offer which he accepted. So In February 2001 I was once again the proud owner of the same 69 Camaro for a second time. The restoration started immediately and almost 1 year to the date the car had been restored. I am very proud of the way the car came out and most of the time we spend driving it is to car shows and in parades. It has won several awards, but I think the best part about it for me is telling this story.

Thanks!


haoli25
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Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:55 pm

That is a great story EAGLE, thanks for sharing it.


I don't have the VIN of my old Charger, so I'm afraid
its a lost cause. I can only hope it is in the hands
of a collector that is as proud of it as I once was.


AndyT
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Thu Jul 02, 2009 4:20 pm

My old 72 Nova. I really miss that car. A friend and I got ourselves beat up changing the leaf springs on it to cure the dog tracking.


eagle670
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Tue Jul 21, 2009 1:23 pm

Hi guys!

I thought that I would post the link to my car story that was in the KC Star a couple of years ago.
http://www.tomstrongman.com/ClassicCars ... /Index.htm


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