Growing up, it’s a funny thing how the car a dad worked on (and cursed at) the most often becomes the object of desire for the kid. It’s all the more amplified when your father tinkers on a classic example like the above, a 1973 Stingray convertible.

That picture was taken in the mid-seventies, and shows Scott Bachmann and his father posing for a quick snapshot in the driveway. The Corvette was a big part of dear old dad’s life, as well as his passing, as it turns out.

An advertisement for the ’73 Stingray, which saw the model shift from muscle car to touring sports car.

According to Scott, the year was 1977, and the elder Bachmann was in the garage working on the car. He suddenly suffered a stroke and lost consciousness as the car was running, and was tragically poisoned by carbon monoxide.

It was a harsh and heavy loss on the young family, and the car was subsequently sold off to keep everything afloat. As Scott grew up, however, he found his thoughts focusing more and more on dad and the short relationship that lingered.

Finding the Corvette that connected father and son together became a major priority for Scott, and the man finally struck gold after some extensive online searching.

Miraculously, the car looks to be about as close to the original as Scott could have wished for. “It was considerably more than my father paid for it,” Bachmann said. “There’s 80,229 original miles, it has the original engine, original trans, and we’re trying to find out about the tires.”

We hope that Scott receives all he yearned for and more with this reunion to his father’s Corvette. No matter what,  it looks like he’ll always have the keys to a part of his past.