Subject: Couple buy back car - 25 years on

http://web.orange.co.uk/images/ice/quirkies/ian_and_jayne_stringer_and_their_vauxhall_chevette_rex.jpg

A Lincolnshire couple have bought back and restored their first family car - a quarter of a century after selling it.

Ian Stringer, 51, from Boston, first bought the red Vauxhall Chevette in 1981 - the year he met his wife Jayne, also 51.

They drove it on their wedding day and even used it to dash to hospital for the birth of their first child.

The couple sold it five years later as they wanted a bigger vehicle and thought they would never see it again.

Then in 2005, completely out of the blue, the daughter of the man they sold it phoned to say he had died and offered them the car back for £200.

"I was absolutely shocked, but very excited," said Mr Stringer. "The car was in a very dilapidated state and clearly hadn't been driven for a long time.

"No one else would have wanted it but for me there was sentiment attached so I bought it."

Mr Stringer spent two years and £3,000 getting the car roadworthy and the last four years restoring it to its former glory.

"The Chevette was a great car and it was a real shame when I had to sell it. I thought I'd never see it again," he added.

"My writing was still in the car's service book and the straps for my son's baby seat were still in the car. It was like a time warp back to the 1980s."