Tom Laskowski spent $90,000 to make his '68 Tempest restored, and the way he wanted it. Then it was stolen about 10 years ago, but a friend of his recently spotted it in a driveway, and now he's got it back!

"That car was given to me by my father in 1975," he said. "We worked on it together. Fixed it up. I drove it all through college and celebrated my graduation by driving it across the country. My wife and I had our first date in that car, and we used it in our wedding party. It means a lot to us."

He had put in a 650-horsepower motor, a Turbo 400 transmission with a trans-brake he used when racing the car, and hundreds of chrome accessories.

Laskowski put the Tempest in storage for $100 a month after a fire damaged his home in February 2011.

Then, a tow truck driver hauled it out of a storage facility, and it was all caught on camera,

The thief hooked the aqua-colored Tempest to a tow truck and drove off. The cameras captured it all in color, right down to the suspect's face and the tow truck's license number. Yet no arrests have been made, and the car has not been recovered.

"Everyone knows who [took it]. We have video of him doing it, and he admits doing it," said Laskowski, 55. "He says he was hired to remove the car by a Jamaican man who said he owned it, even though he had no keys or registration.

"Of course, no one can find this Jamaican man," Laskowski said. "Shouldn't the tow-truck driver be responsible for taking the car?"

Cleveland Detective John Kraynik agrees with Laskowski. He investigated the theft.

Kraynik said the case was poorly laid out to a Cuyahoga County grand jury by a detective not familiar with it. Kraynik said only the barest of evidence was presented.

"I was working a later shift, so they sent another detective," Kraynik said. "But he was not aware of everything I had. I was angry when I learned what happened. The suspect admitted to me that he stole the car, and we had him on camera doing it. But that was not presented to the grand jury."

here's the story: https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2012/06/memories_make_pontiac_tempest.html

“When we got married it was in our wedding party,” Laskowski said. “So it had a lot of sentimental value.”

They never stopped looking for it, and by chance Tom’s good friend spotted it in November. Tom and his friends were then able to locate it in a driveway in Maple Heights. Even though the car was made to look like a GTO, Tom knew it was his Tempest.

“It was very obvious it was my car,” Tom said. “I had hundreds of things that we changed. I knew what I did on that car.”

A few months later, William Woods, of Maple Heights was indicted on a receiving stolen property charge. His case is still pending in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

https://fox8.com/news/i-team/after-nearly-a-decade-man-gets-stolen-classic-car-back