IN 1981, RONALD Reagan earned the keys to the White House, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was in theaters, and Joseph Gaskill, an 18-year-old kid from Southern Virginia, bought a 1966 Mustang fastback.

When he bought it, the Mustang was wearing a shiny red repaint and was outfitted with red threads, a 289, and a 4-speed — but at that time, young Joe’s new toy was little more than a used car. Almost immediately after bringing the car home, Joe teamed up with his dad to restore the car to its original black hue, freshened up the tired bits and started racking up miles.

However, after only five short years together, Joe and his Mustang went their separate ways.

Over the years, other Mustangs came and went, but the fastback stuck with Joe. The ‘66 wasn’t the fastest or nicest car Joe had ever owned, but it was certainly the car he had invested the most time and effort into.

As he grew older, he’d come to cherish the time he’d spent with his dad wrenching on cars, and his father’s passing in 2012 only made him think more fondly of the time they shared with the fastback. He often thought of tracking the car down, but with no VIN number and no records of ownership, he saw little hope of ever seeing the car again.

Then, in 2020, Joe lost his mom, too.

Joe told me, “As I was sorting through my mom’s stuff, I came across a hand-written piece of paper stuffed in one of her files.

“When I sold the fastback back in ’86,” he said, “my dad wrote a bill of sale for us to have as a record. And on that bill of sale, there it was, the Mustang’s VIN!”

With his old Mustang’s VIN in hand, Joe began his search in earnest. “I reached out to a few local Mustang guys, but no one was able to help,” Joe said. “Then,” he continued, “I spoke with a guy who mentioned in passing a Facebook page called “Lost Muscle Cars.” He told me ‘This guy hunts down cars for people. You should give him a try.’ So that’s what I did.”

On a Tuesday in mid-December of last year, Joe posted his story and grainy old photographs of his Mustang on Wes Eisenschenk’s “Lost Muscle Cars” page.

That Friday, his phone rang.

Finding the missing pieces

Wes Eisenschenk stumbled into the world of lost muscle cars by accident 20 years ago when a friend found a gas receipt under the carpet of his ’66 Barracuda. Motivated by nothing more than curiosity, Wes managed to track down the Barracuda’s original owner, rang him up on the phone to learn the history of the car and has been doing the same for friends and strangers ever since.

Now, with a dedicated Facebook page with over 50,000 followers and over 500 successful reunions under his belt, searching for lost muscle cars is Wes’ full-time part-time job.

“The Facebook page easily gets 30 to 40 requests a day,” Wes says, “but few have much to go on.”

Wes then sorts through the postings one by one to see which ones have tangible information for him to dig into. “The ones that are able to provide VINs or license plates,” he told me, “those are the ones I can really go after.”

And he does all of this work essentially for free, only asking a nominal fee when necessary — which begs one simple question: In this age of mass marketing, branding and personal commercialization, why give anything away for free? “Well,” Wes said, “we could all benefit from some good news.”

Time capsule

When Joe’s phone rang that Friday last December, it was Wes on the other end. Not only had he found Joe’s car, and not only was the owner willing to let Joe see it, but he might even be willing to sell it.

Joe, with the giddiness still in his voice, said, “When he told me he’d found my Mustang, my eyes filled up with tears. When he told me it might be for sale, I started crying!”

Joe then reached out to the Mustang’s owner and arranged a time to meet. Joe was shocked to learn the car had not ventured far in the almost four decades since their time together and was still located in the Southern Virginia area.

When they were reunited, Joe was almost overwhelmed. “It was like a time capsule that was just waiting for me to bring home,” Joe said. It still wore the black paint he and his father had applied all those years ago, and the interior was unchanged.

The man who now owned the car turned out to be as equally genial and sentimental as Joe. He had purchased the car in 2015 for his own father because he had owned an almost brand-new example decades earlier.

The father drove the car for three years before age began getting the better of him, and the Mustang had mostly sat in the garage for the last two or three years. Now, having heard Joe’s story and been personally affected by Joe’s sentimentality, the owner said, “I would never deny a man the opportunity to buy his old car back.” A deal was struck, and on Christmas Eve of 2022, Joe’s Mustang came home again.

Perfect timing

Now that the dust has settled and Joe has had a moment to reflect on the experience, he can’t help but think about how the stars aligned for him. “If the car had been perfectly restored, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it,” he confessed. “If I had found it a few years ago,” he continued, “it probably wouldn’t have been for sale.”

“This is my car,” he said, “almost exactly like it was when I last saw it. And now my son is interested in cars and I can share this experience with him. The family connection to this car is really important… and I’m just so happy to have it back.”