More than 50 years ago, Steve Payne sold his 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air for $200 so he could buy his future wife, Vicki, an engagement ring.
Last week, Payne sat at his kitchen table and looked through the window at that same car parked in his yard.
The two-door hard top has a bit more rust on it than decades prior, but it’s Payne’s baby, and he loves it no matter what shape it’s in.
“She’s come back home,” he said.
The friend he’d sold it to as a young man years ago gifted it back to him for his birthday in July.
The Paynes’ children had kept the plan a secret from their parents, so it was a surprise for Vicki, too, to see it trailered in.
Steve and Vicki were invited to their daughter Sarah Payton’s house on July 3 for Steve’s birthday dinner. When they pulled up, they noticed more cars and people than expected, including Mike and Wilma Yeley, to whom Steve sold the car long ago.
“Every time Steve would see him he would get his wallet out and say, ‘How much you want for it?’ He’s like, ‘Nah, nah,’” Vicki said.
The conversation started up again. “How much you want today?” Steve asked Mike.
The two were standing in the driveway when the Paynes’ son, Doug, pulled up with the car on a trailer.
“Mike’s grinning and he’s looking at Steve. I thought, ‘What’s going on?’
“Steve began to tear up and he put his arm around Mike. It gives me goosebumps,” Vicki said.
Steve told the story: “He said, ‘Here it is. You deserve it. It’s yours.’ … ‘If I keep it much longer it will be the point of no return with fixing it up.’
“I don’t know why he wouldn’t sell it to me. He just wouldn’t do it. Then he ended up giving it to me. It makes me teary-eyed now to think about it.”
For about 20 minutes, everyone at the party walked around the car, looking at it, Vicki said.
Returning home
Yeley and Steve met in the Air Force Reserve. They both stood up with each other on their wedding days. Steve joined the Air Force Reserve in 1967 after he graduated from high school in Brown County.
Vicki and Steve Payne married on May 4, 1968. They had gone to school together since seventh grade. During their last semester of high school, Steve was sitting in a chair in the hallway with a friend when Vicki walked by.
“She went by me, I stuck my foot out, she tripped, and I told everybody she fell for me,” Steve said.
Their first date was in the 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air. Vicki remembers the loose bucket seats in the car rocking as they rode around.
After they graduated, Steve decided he wanted to pop the question.
“I said something to him (Yeley) one day about I needed $200 to buy Vicki an engagement ring. I said, ‘I just don’t have it. I’m going to have to sell my car.’ I had two or three cars by this time,” Steve said.
“It wasn’t like I made him walk,” Vicki added.
Steve kept the transmission and motor from the car and sold the body for $200, then he bought Vicki’s ring in December 1967.
Steve worked at Cummins right after high school before taking a military leave in September. He was gone for six months.
“Absence makes your heart grow fonder,” Vicki said. She still remembers his military ID number.
When the news came across the radio that Steve’s unit was going to be activated to go to Vietnam, they decided to get married and planned a wedding in three weeks.
“Back then you had cake and punch, mints and nuts. My dress came in and the girls’ dresses came in the week of the wedding,” Vicki said.
They were married on a Saturday and Steve was supposed to leave the next Saturday. But on Thursday, they heard on the radio that Steve’s deployment had been canceled, so they didn’t have to spend their first few months of marriage apart after all.
Yeley kept the car at his house in a corner of a barn. Steve remembers seeing it once and asking Yeley to sell it back to him, but at that time Yeley said his own children were interested in it.
Finally, Yeley contacted the Paynes’ kids to tell them he was tired of it being in the garage. “My brother said, ‘Absolutely. When and where?’” Payton said.
When Doug pulled in with the car, Payton said her dad was choked up.
“He turned around to all of us and said, ‘That is the car I sold to get this woman a ring, my wife, before I went to Vietnam.’”
Taking him back
Steve, an only child, would spend a lot of time with his cousins down in Salem, working on cars. One of his cousins had found this car for him. Steve’s mom paid for it since he was 15 and didn’t have money or a driver’s license yet. The motor and transmission came later on after he turned 16.
Steve remembers putting in the transmission in the same garage where he lives now, which was originally his parents’ home. His father had built it.
“We didn’t have a concrete floor in the garage yet. I laid in there and put a transmission in it one night. I worked out of that garage when I was in high school, trying to keep it running like most young kids,” he said.
Steve had visions for his car, but not having the money to do what he wanted prevented that. Now, he might.
Ordering a frame could take six to seven months. Putting a straight axle under the front of the car, buying a new hood, putting in new seating, installing new windows and buying a new frame are all on his list, too.
“The amount of work I am looking forward to I am not really excited about. We even talked to some people that do restorations like that. Their answer to me was ‘We’re two and a half years out,’” he said.
It’s going to be a labor of love.
“I’m going back through my teenage years,” he said with a laugh. “… I’ve got plans.”
