Photo: Derek Carroll / yorkpress.co.uk
Everyone loves a good, heart-lifting, happy-end story that sees man or woman reunited with their long-lost first car. Especially if it’s a classic.
This is not one of those stories or, at the very least, not yet.
One taxi driver turned board game developer from Edinburgh, Scotland, Derek Carroll, has launched an online search for the car he bought in 1976. It was his beater car, a 1965 Chevrolet Impala, and he wants it back, even though he knows it’s been chopped in half and given entirely new and surprising functionality.
The search started a while back, when Carroll went on Facebook (where else?) with a photo of his old Impala, showing the license plate, and asking whether anyone knew its whereabouts. He tells the York Press that he bought it in 1976 after seeing it outside a local business, with flat tires and looking unused.
At the time, Carroll was an apprentice mechanic and only 17 years old, and had just £100 ($122) in his pocket. He wrote a letter to the owner of the business asking whether he’d sell it for that kind of money and, surprisingly, the man accepted his offer.
Sometime in late 1979 or in early 1980, Carroll sold the car to a local wedding business for 4 times the amount. He even rented it for his wedding day, driving himself and his best friend to the ceremony where he married his first wife.
Then, he lost track of the car. Carroll’s initial search revealed that the person who bought the car from the wedding business had it chopped in half and turned into a barbecue. Because, why not? However, since then, that owner sold the unique BBQ to someone else and hasn’t been able to track down that person.
It’s a very tangled history, but Carroll is hoping to untangle it with help from the Internet. His goal is to be reunited with the Impala, which he calls his “pride and joy,” even if it’s half the car it used to be (pardon the pun).
“I have contacted the Yorkshire American Car Club to see if any of their members owned it, but to no avail,” he tells the same media outlet. “Having had so many great times in this car in my youth, I would love to have this barbecue in my garden now.”
One taxi driver turned board game developer from Edinburgh, Scotland, Derek Carroll, has launched an online search for the car he bought in 1976. It was his beater car, a 1965 Chevrolet Impala, and he wants it back, even though he knows it’s been chopped in half and given entirely new and surprising functionality.
The search started a while back, when Carroll went on Facebook (where else?) with a photo of his old Impala, showing the license plate, and asking whether anyone knew its whereabouts. He tells the York Press that he bought it in 1976 after seeing it outside a local business, with flat tires and looking unused.
At the time, Carroll was an apprentice mechanic and only 17 years old, and had just £100 ($122) in his pocket. He wrote a letter to the owner of the business asking whether he’d sell it for that kind of money and, surprisingly, the man accepted his offer.
Sometime in late 1979 or in early 1980, Carroll sold the car to a local wedding business for 4 times the amount. He even rented it for his wedding day, driving himself and his best friend to the ceremony where he married his first wife.
Then, he lost track of the car. Carroll’s initial search revealed that the person who bought the car from the wedding business had it chopped in half and turned into a barbecue. Because, why not? However, since then, that owner sold the unique BBQ to someone else and hasn’t been able to track down that person.
It’s a very tangled history, but Carroll is hoping to untangle it with help from the Internet. His goal is to be reunited with the Impala, which he calls his “pride and joy,” even if it’s half the car it used to be (pardon the pun).
“I have contacted the Yorkshire American Car Club to see if any of their members owned it, but to no avail,” he tells the same media outlet. “Having had so many great times in this car in my youth, I would love to have this barbecue in my garden now.”
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