UK Man On The Hunt For A Piece Of His First Car

The age-old tale of a man trying to track down his first car... one piece at a time.

Forty years ago, Derek Carroll, now 61, of Edinburgh, Scotland, sold his beloved 1965 Chevrolet Impala sedan, and a couple months ago, he posted a picture of the car on Facebook to see if anyone knew the car's current whereabouts. Within 20 minutes, Carroll had a lead on the car, but it wasn't the news he was looking for.

As it turns out, the car had become a donor vehicle to transform the front clip into a barbecue pit, and identifying that this was his old car was made easy thanks to the fact that the original license plate was still attached to the bumper. Sadly, the person who contacted him with information said that he had sold the unique barbecue grille and was not able to contact the subsequent buyer. So Carroll is continuing his quest to locate his beloved Impala – even if it's just the front end.

"I hadn’t been actively searching for it. I had put a photo of the car on an Edinburgh FB page and 20 minutes later a local guy contacted me saying he had owned the front end of that car, converted it into a barbecue and sold it to someone in York. All this happened in the last 2 months. No information on it so far."

Why is a barbecue pit made from the front end of a '65 Impala so special, you ask? In 1976, Carroll, then 17, made what he felt was a lowball offer of £100 (equivalent to about £724/$872 USD in 2020), and he was surprised when the owner of the '65 Impala agreed to the price. Like many of us, Carroll made fond memories in his first car, but in 1980, he made the decision to sell the car to pay for his wedding. At least he made a profit on the car with a sale price of £400 (about £1,726/$2000USD today).

h/t: Edinburgh News

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