'I cherish having it back' (5 photos)

As a youngster, Allan Gold would buy two Camaros.

His second would eventually turn into his prized possession.

The car is a 1968 Rally Sport Z28 Camaro. The story is one of being reunited with something special.

It was 1969 when Gold, who was a 20-year-old college student working part time at the time, traveled to Toronto to purchase the car.

“Drag racing was a big deal in the Sault at that time,” Gold said. “I was really into that. I worked in the garage at a Texaco service station, so I knew how to do stuff at a pretty early age.”

With the help of Harold Ross, a Michigan-native and familiar name in car circles locally at the time, Gold got the car ready to run in drag races.

“He taught me a lot,” Gold said of Ross.

Gold raced the car competitively for two years in 1969 and 1970 and eventually sold the car. The buyer, Leslie Cook, also ran the car in drag races and Gold worked on the car for Cook.

In the early 1980s, Cook would sell the car. The buyer, Scott Livingstone, was another familiar face for Gold.

Eventually, in 1999, the car was parked and remained that way until 2015.

“I knew about the car over the years and I talked to Scott probably starting more than 10 years ago (about buying the car),” Gold said. “Finally, in 2015, we got talking about it and I decided I was going to get it.”

Gold bought the car back in the fall of 2015 and would proceed to restore it.

Living in London at the time, a city he still resides in, he bought the car in 2015, Gold made the trip north to get reacquainted with his new purchase.

With the car parked in a garage off the roadway, Gold, with the help of a crew of friends, loaded the car into a trailer to make the trip to London, where he would begin the restoration. Among those who helped him load the car were Martin Foster and Rob Malesh, who were also with Gold when he originally purchased it.

“When we went to get the car, it had sat so long, I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to push it because the wheels can seize to the axels,” Gold said. “It was quite a distance off the road, so they came to help me.”

After he bought the car back, Gold estimates he put 1,000 hours into restoring the car, a process that was just short of a year in the making.

Gold did much of the work himself, only contracting out the painting.

“I’m still refining it but I’m running out of things to do with it,” Gold joked.

The opportunity to buy the car back was a special one for Gold.

“It’s my prized possession,” Gold said. “I cherish having it back.”