VALLONIA — Anyone who enters a vehicle in a car show can tell you an interesting story about when they purchased it, how much time and money they have invested it and why it’s special to them.

Few stories can match the one three brothers from this small community of than less 400 people can tell you about one of their prized possessions.

“My dad bought this car back in 1974,” John Burcham said of the 1969 Shelby GT 500 purchased by Wayne Burcham.

That car was on display with dozens of other cars and trucks Saturday at the Driftwood Township Volunteer Fire Department’s annual fundraiser, Rumble at Fort Vallonia.

John said his father found the car near West Lafayette on his way home from Purdue University one time and bought it.

Wayne married Mary Lou Koop in 1981, and they had three boys, John and twin brother, Jeremy, and their younger brother, Chad Burcham.

Wayne and Mary Lou owned the car until they sold it in August 1985 around the time she became pregnant with John and Jeremy. They were born in April 1986, and Chad came along in 1990, so the Shelby GT was long gone before any of the three were born.

“We just grew up listening to stories about it and getting to look at it in the photo album,” John said.

Jeremy said their dad told them the car was sitting in the barn not making him any money and he needed to buy a furnace, so he sold it.

John said an issue at that time was the upstairs of the house where the Burchams grew up was not heated very well.

“(Wayne) said a glass of water sitting on a table upstairs would freeze,” Chad said.

After Wayne sold the Shelby to a guy in Poughkeepsie, New York, it was sold again to someone in Oklahoma before it made it to a car dealership in Texas. The dealership them sold it on eBay in December 1999 to someone in Massachusetts.

“We have all the paperwork from when it sold on eBay to the guy in Massachusetts (Rod Butcher),” Jeremy said.

There was the Y2K scare at the time, delaying completion of paperwork.

“He paid for the car in January and got it delivered in January,” Jeremy said of Butcher, who told them he drove it about 200 miles and it sat in the garage for the next two decades.

“That owner said he bought it for an investment and it didn’t really mean a whole lot to him. He said he was retired and selling his house and he would sell it to us,” John said.

After his dad sold the Shelby in 1985, it had only been driven about 1,100 miles and now has about 56,000 miles on the odometer.

John said being able to purchase the car means a lot to the brothers after 20 years of searching off and on.

His brothers credit him with doing a lot of the research to find the car. That search started with him talking to guys at car shows.

“They were willing to help,” he said.

John said he eventually tracked down some names and then went to the Lost Muscle Car Facebook page.

“John had all the right leads pointing to the whereabouts of the Shelby,” Jeremy said. “He couldn’t make the final connection with the guy who actually owned it because we didn’t have any phone number or address. He had found him on Facebook but couldn’t get ahold of him.”

The administrator of the page made the final connection and put John in touch with Butcher.

Mary Lou knew something was up the day the three brothers decided to head to Burlington, Massachusetts, to get the car.

“We all told her we were leaving town, and she started asking questions,” John said. “She kind of had a notion something was up, but we didn’t tell her until we were at about Brownstown and already on the road.”

Chad said Mary Lou knew she wasn’t stopping them from going.

“She just told us to be careful,” John said.

The 2,200-mile road trip required about 32 hours of driving to bring the Shelby home.

The brothers made that trip about a month ago to purchase the car and bring it back. Since that time, they’ve cleaned and repaired the fuel system, changed the oil, removed the gas and added clean fuel since it hadn’t been run in more than 11 years.

“The previous owner had it 20-some years and he never even changed the oil because he only drove it 200 miles,” Jeremy said.

The car is not the original color, and it doesn’t have the original engine in it since Wayne blew that one during a trip to the store at nearby Millport in northern Washington County.

“He was pretty hard on the things. He was going down there to get a pop and he blew it up,” Jeremy said.

“That was the most expensive bottle of pop he ever bought in his life,” Chad said with a laugh.

After blowing the engine, Wayne had to get on the CB radio — it was back in the ‘70s — and holler at one of the neighbors to haul him in, Chad said.

They pulled the car to Wayne’s shop and replaced the engine and had it hopped pretty well performance-wise, he said.

“He took the neighbor for a ride and it had so much power, it broke the input shaft on the transmission,” Chad said. “The neighbor was actually driving it.”

They took it back to the shop and started repairing it, dropping the transmission, putting a shaft back in it and had it going a few hours, he said.

Later that night, Wayne drove by the neighbor’s house sideways with headlights shining in his windows to let him know he had it fixed.

Wayne, who died June 13, 2019, knew his sons were trying to find the vehicle.

“He kind of thought it was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Jeremy said.

Wayne also wasn’t real big on staying up on technology and he didn’t care to do it, which made finding and bringing the Shelby home important to the brothers, Jeremy said.

“He knew John was looking for it pretty heavy, but I don’t know if he ever thought it was possible to find,” Jeremy said.

Jeremy said he also felt like bringing the Shelby home wasn’t going to be easy.

And what would Wayne think if he was still alive?

“I think he would be grinning ear to ear,” John said of the Shelby making its way back to Vallonia.

Wayne and Mary Lou also owned a 1967 Shelby GT 350, and John was able to track that vehicle down, as well, but the owner wasn’t interested in selling it.

“I actually found that one before Dad passed, and I was able to show him an updated picture,” John said. “It’s in really good hands. The guy has owned it for more than 30 years. Dad was grinning that day from ear to ear when I showed him that picture.”

One of the Burchams’ favorite stories about the Shelby is well known to many of those who knew Wayne.

“He was known for laying a $100 bill on the passenger side dashboard,” John said. “He would tell the person riding with them if they could grab it, they could have it.”

The car, however, has so much power on takeoff that it is impossible to grab the bill.

Another story about their dad and the Shelby involves a visit from a father and son who were looking to buy it when Wayne put it up for sale.

“They were actually driving a Shelby that day and stopped in to look at it,” John said. “The father stayed there in the barn lot, and Dad took the son for a drive.”

Before the son’s ride, the father and son were kind of nitpicking on Wayne’s Shelby, Chad said.

“They had a clean-looking Shelby. Dad’s wasn’t a show car,” he said.

“It was built,” John said. “Dad took the boy for a ride he would never forget. He went about 3 miles down the road to his farm shop, and he came out perpendicular in the road. He said, ‘Now, for example, you get in a tight parking lot and you need to get your car turned around, but there’s too much going on, you just turn the wheel and hit the gas.’”

The car did an immediate 180, and Wayne drove it right back out where he had come in out on the road.

“Dad took him for a ride on the highway, too, and the boy got so nervous when they got back out, he immediately jumped out and said, ‘Come on, Dad. It’s too much of a car for me,’” John said.

John said his dad was a self-taught mechanic and was wild in his younger years, having an addiction to cars, dating Mary Lou and being known for making anything run.

“He had a deep, genuine heart for friendships and helping people,” he said. “He would help people and give the shirt off his back to do it.”

John said they got their love of cars from their father, who also owned a 1969 Ford Talladega, a 1970 Ford Mustang Mach I, a 1967 Ford Mustang GT 390 Fastback he built for Mary Lou, a 1969 Chevrolet Nova and a 1970 Ford Torino Cobra Jet, which he also bought for Mary Lou.

“Just growing up and looking at those photo albums and hearing Dad talk and also listening to the stories people in the community and neighbors tell about Dad just makes you crack up,” he said.

The local fire department also has been an important part of their life.

“Dad was an avid supporter of Driftwood volunteer fire department,” John said. “We would always gather as a family here to eat fish at the fire station on Fort Vallonia Days.”

The Rumble was a good way to reintroduce the Shelby to the community, and plenty of people stopped by to talk about it during the car show.

Chad said he and his brothers have brought cars to the Rumble each year.

“It’s kind of neat to be out here,” he said. “It’s pretty neat to be on the fire department and live in this small town.”

John said the fire department is very active in the community.

“We have a lot of members,” he said.

Money raised from the Rumble helps with operating expenses. The department also is building a much-needed station on Main Street.

“We’ve run out of room,” Chad said.

“We’re a small town department, but we have good performance, and that’s the key here,” John said.