There’s a video on YouTube from about 10 years back that features famed rock musician Peter Frampton being handed a black Les Paul, with palpable anticipation on his face. The guitar was allegedly the very one Frampton had played on some of his most well-known recordings and in many concerts during the ’70s, including the shows recorded for his massive Frampton Comes Alive album. However, that guitar was lost decades prior when a cargo plane carrying gear for the band crashed and burned in Venezuela. It was assumed the instrument had been destroyed with everything else on the plane, and Frampton has said the crew’s loss of life made investigating the equipment further seem trivial. He accepted that his cherished Les Paul was gone for good.
In the video, when Frampton gets his hands on the guitar in question, it takes mere seconds for his expression to change as he proclaims, “It’s my guitar.” A reunion transpires that is nearly incredible, the odds of it happening so slim, but even after further investigation, there seems to have been no question that this was indeed the same customized guitar Frampton had played more than 40 years prior. I couldn’t help noting the parallels between Frampton’s guitar recovery and some of the stories of vintage car owners rediscovering long-lost rides.
Electric guitars like the ones played by most rock musicians usually begin as mass-produced items, then over time, the custom touches of their owners and the wear and tear that occurs from use can leave each one somewhat unique, if only subtly so. It’s essentially the same way for vintage muscle cars.
Chevrolet pumped out Camaros just like Fender made as many Stratocasters as it could feasibly produce each year. And just as certain Camaros are more desirable than others (trim, model year, options, etc.), so too are particular Strats more prized. But they all roll off their respective production lines and out into the world, and some lucky owner starts enjoying each one. Some changes are made consciously — a set of mag wheels, an upgraded set of pickups — and other changes are not so intentional — a scratch here, a bump there. All become part of the signature of that individual item.
Muscle cars and electric guitars are things associated with youth, and the sorts of possessions many people let go of when the next phase of life begins. Sometimes thieves or accidents make the decision for us, but whatever the case, years on, we tend to long for those once-treasured bits of our younger years. Most of the time, a reasonable facsimile of the original is the best we can muster.
But there are those somewhat rare cases when that very same car is rediscovered after years of absence, and when a paper trail doesn’t exist to prove its origins, all those signature details are often what make the connection.
I’ve had a taste of the exhilaration that can come from finding a long-lost car a few years ago, and it wasn’t even one of my own that resurfaced. During our teen years in the ’80s, one of my close friends owned a ’69 Charger that we’d had a lot of good times with. He sold it to another friend as the decade was winding down, and that friend sold it to a stranger as the ’90s were getting under way. The car was still quite fast thanks to its 440 Magnum, but it was showing its age in every other respect, and we all assumed it had probably been parted out long ago. But then I was contacted by someone who told me about a Charger they had in the same area at the same time. The similarities stacked up and it was soon obvious that this was the same car.
The elation I had at the thought of maybe being able to see that car again was strange, especially since I had never actually owned it myself. Still, I couldn’t wait to check it out, even if it was thrashed. Alas, in this case, it was not to be — the person who’d reached out owned a few Chargers, but the one from my younger days ago had passed through his hands and was now gone.
Though I didn’t get the full thrill with that one, the experience left me with a sample of what some of these people must feel when they do get to lay eyes on that once-lost object of affection. In this very issue, we have a story of someone building a car to replace one he once had, another tale of someone being reunited with the car he’d purchased brand new decades earlier, and still another story of someone finally filling in all the long-questioned blanks in the history of another rare car — in this case, helped by some of those unique details imprinted years prior. In each case, I suspect there was a bit of that same elation of rediscovery — just like I saw on Peter Frampton’s face as he clutched that special Les Paul.
