Father and Son Go to Illinois To Get Their 1969 Chevy Camaro Back, the Owner Hides the Car

The 1969 Chevrolet Camaro was the first new car that Drew's father had ever bought. It was, in fact, a graduation present for him. He bought half of the car when he graduated college. He had been saving money for years. His parents bought the other half.

After his older car broke down on the way back to school, his parents took him to a dealership to help him get a new car. The Camaro was the last thing on his mind that day. He was considering a Plymouth Superbird or a Roadrunner. Instead, he went home with a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro with a 350-cubic-inch (5.7-liter) engine.

Drew Money, who was born in 1979, grew up proud that his dad, an aerospace engineer, had a cool car. He kept the Camaro until the late 1980s when Drew was about seven or eight years old. He was upset when the Chevy left the family, but there was nothing he could do.

Drew now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Camaro his father had was assembled in Cincinnati, at General Motors' first plant built from the ground up outside the state of Michigan. That production center was also the first to implement robotic welding and worked around the clock to ramp up production and keep up with the demand.

Nowadays, there is nothing left where the Norwood Assembly plant used to be but a parking garage. There is no trace of the old car factory. The story of the plant got Drew's attention, so he wanted to find out more. While digging, he started turning nostalgic thinking about his father's 1969 Camaro. They were both sorry it was sold at some point.

Both of them went to a plant reunion, trying to find out more about the facility and the cars that rolled off the production line there and maybe, who knows, get to know someone who would know something about their good old Camaro.

The most exciting story he found out was the longest strike in any industry. One day, workers walked away, and the plant had to close down for almost a year. They left behind over 1,100 cars on the production line.

Safety standards changed over that year so all those cars could not be sold anymore. They just did not comply with the new regulations in force at the time. GM managed to negotiate with the government. But the move turned out to be useless.

The cars that they could start could be sold as previous model year examples. If they did not start, they would be sent straight to the crusher. GM even tried to sell them to countries where the safety regulations were not that stringent. But that was something that the US government would not allow. So, those cars went straight into the backyard crusher.

With all the stories collected about the plant, he and his father still couldn't find out anything about their 1969 Camaro. The one who had bought it from his father had turned it into a dragster and changed pretty much everything about it.

He then tried to auction it off, but nobody wanted it. The owner reportedly went after those bidding and told them he would sell it to the first person who offered $7,000. And he did because he needed cash.

They got the VIN number and found someone willing to find out where it was last registered. They tracked it down in Illinois and even found a video of what they thought was their former car.

His father contacted the owner and told him he was the first owner of the Camaro. But the owner was quite suspicious. He and his son weren't exactly friendly and probably thought that Drew and his dad were trying to scam them and eventually told them they sold it through a lawyer who bought it for a car collector.

They did not believe the story. They felt it was fishy. What car collector out there would buy a 1969 Camaro that did not keep much of the original version? So, the two of them went to a race track where the car was filmed racing. They went to a bar to ask questions about the Camaro and the owner.

But luckily, it was a car club reunion. The members of the car club listened to their story. Someone eventually told them he knew where the car was and offered to talk to the owner. He never sold it.

However, days later, the guy from the bar did not answer the phone, did not reply to messages nor to their email. So, even though they seemed to be so close to their old Camaro, they still don't know where it is right now. One thing is for sure: the current owner does not want them to know!