Torn Parking Ticket, Tenacity Reunite Former Owners Of Classic Car

TINLEY PARK, IL — Craig Miller will tell you every car has a story—but he'll also show you just how that's true. A classic car enthusiast and owner of a painstakingly restored 1965 Pontiac GTO, Miller has the pictures and friendships to prove it.

Miller was dismantling the dashboard of his beloved ride as part of his restoration efforts, when out came fluttering a small, tattered, yellow piece of paper. A parking ticket, he said, from Ames, Iowa, issued decades earlier. Believing he was at least the seventh man to love this car, Miller set out to find the previous owners. Down the rabbit hole he went, diving into Iowa State University contacts and starting with calls to a fraternity located at the address the ticket was issued. Three years later, he found just the guy he was looking for—the latest piece in the puzzle of his cherished car.

"From that traffic ticket, a little tenacity and stick-to-it-ness, I tracked him down," Miller said, referencing the car's second owner, Denny Sidowski.

He has now connected the dots from the first owner who drove the car off the dealership lot in 1965, almost completely through the present day, and has built relationships with several of its previous owners along the way.

Mike Hogrefe and his wife Geri were the car's very first owners. Newlyweds in 1964, it was their first big, joint purchase.

"Driving it off the lot for the first time—that was our first new car, we were just married less than a year," Hogrefe said. "It was the first new vehicle we'd ever had."

Miller traced the ownership back to Hogrefe and reached out to get a sense of its history.

"... What car guys do, he wanted to know the whole history of the car," Hogrefe said. "One thing led to another, we were just amazed. We thought that the car 5 years after I sold it, that it was in a wreck, it was totaled, and that was it.

"Here this thing is still alive, it was a shock."

But it was just barely that when Miller first bought it from his then-brother-in-law. It's taken years, countless hours of manpower and dedication to bring this beauty back from the brink.

"It never ends," Miller said, laughing. "It was a real rat when I got it, so for years, several friends—some I paid, some who just helped me — worked on it. I had to choose which one of my kids would not be going to college because of this car."

Hogrefe was thrilled to delve back into the car's past with Miller, sharing stories often and meeting up on occasion—as recently as early July—to reminisce over photos and memories.

One special day with the car while Hogrefe still owned it, he used it to transport good friend (and later honorary owner of the car) Mike Breagel and his new bride on their wedding day, from ceremony to reception. Fifty years later, after Hogrefe had reconnected with Miller, he asked if Miller would do him the honor of using it again, on that same friend's 50th wedding anniversary, so they could ride in it once again. Miller had the engine ripped out, the car wasn't running, but he worked around the clock to have it ready in time, Hogrefe said.

"Fifty years later, we duplicated the exact same people in the exact same car," Miller said. "That’s God’s work right there."

That, and a whole lot of elbow grease.

"I give him so much credit, three or four guys just busted their butts so we could pull this thing off," Hogrefe said. "The GTO was in bad shape when Craig got it, hours and hours of work to restore it.

"Car guys, it’s one great big family. Call ‘em gearheads. ... It’s in their blood. It’s gotta be a call of passion. They just love their cars."

Miller's hard work hasn't just paid off in sentimentalities. He entered his ride into the 2022 World of Wheels—something he calls akin to the Masters tournament in golf—and took first place.

But it's Miller's diligence in tracking down the previous owners that tickles Hogrefe.

"All the hours of tracking us all down, finding us all," he said, in amazement.

The honor of piecing together the car's past was worth the work, Miller said.

"The stories, the pictures, it’s such a story to go from getting a piece of 'poop' from my brother-in-law, to a little piece of paper," Miller said, of the ticket. "And it just fluttered out!”

"Every scratch, dent, ding, little accident. ... People say, 'if only this car could talk.' ….

"Well, mine can.”