Even though Stan Aiton only bought his 1962 Dodge Lancer last year, he'd been saving parts for the restoration and modification of just such a car for the last 41 years, so he was crushed when the Lancer, fitted with those parts, was stolen earlier this year. Thanks to the actions of some good Samaritans, however, the Lancer is back in Stan's possession.

Stan bought the Lancer last March when still living in Virginia and almost immediately began stripping it down to prepare it for paint and for the era-correct aluminum-block slant-six engine, Hyper-Pak four-barrel intake manifold and split exhaust manifolds he'd acquired from a neighbor when he was 15 years old. He said the car, dubbed Lancersaurus, was about 60 percent complete - including new paint, a new windshield and newly reupholstered seats - when he took a job in Texas in January of this year. Without a garage to keep Lancersaurus in after his move, he stored it in a 24-foot enclosed trailer along with a 1971 Dodge Colt he planned to turn into a race car, and kept the trailer parked at a storage lot in Duncanville, Texas.

Then toward the end of July, the trailer and everything in it disappeared. Stan filed a police report, but investigators had little to go on until the trailer was spotted wearing another set of stolen license plates in August. The police arrested the man hauling the trailer on multiple counts of grand theft auto, accusing him of using the trailer to steal other cars, but the trailer was recovered sans Lancersaurus or the Colt or any of the parts Stan had been collecting for years. It looked as if Stan wouldn't see the contents of the trailer ever again, but as it turned out, the Lancer hadn't gone very far.

Earlier this month, Stephen Ramsey and Adrian Britton at Ramsey's Rods and Restoration in Fort Worth, Texas - less than two hours from Duncanville - were offered the Lancer for $1,500 by a couple looking to bail their nephew out of jail. "We get calls all the time from people who want to sell their cars, so I went out to take a look," Britton said. When the sellers began bringing out boxes upon boxes of parts, Britton began to suspect something was up, but brought it back to the shop anyway. "Steve just looked into my eyes and said, 'That's not right.'" The Lancer didn't have its VIN, but after some digging online, Ramsey found message board posts from Stan asking people to keep an eye out for his car.

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