Ed Wolf of Newtown has a car unlike any other. The fact it was Motor Trend magazine’s 1968 Car of the Year makes it pretty special to begin with. What makes it even more meaningful for Mr Wolf is that his half century-old Pontiac GTO convertible is a rolling tribute to his wife, Barbara, who passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56 in 2015.

It is an interesting story about how Mr Wolf got this GTO to begin with. He traded his hard top vehicle to his cousin for this soft top because his cousin lived in an area where the top was repeatedly getting sliced by criminals. Since 1977, he has owned this car, and the rest is history — a very interesting history.

Back when the now 60-year-old was a young adult living in the Bronx, N.Y., the car accompanied him and Barbara on many dates, on through their marriage and start of their family. It developed a problem in which it did not receive oil pressure in the middle 1980s, so it sat in storage at Mr Wolf’s property in the Bronx. When his family moved to Newtown, over a period of three-plus decades, it was neglected (and under piles of stuff), and remained off the road still at the time Barbara became ill.

Although the couple had talked about getting the 1968 GTO restored, “it just sat there and sat there,” said Mr Wolf, explaining that life got busy and other priorities prevented them from taking action on a project that just was not as important as family life and work.

Once their children, Ed Jr, Christina, and Nicholas, were raised and things slowed down a bit, the idea of the car being restored moved back to the front burner a handful of years ago. Ed, Jr, was to get married, putting off the project another year — at which time Barbara became ill. She may not have been around to see the car back on the road, but it was Barbara’s encouraging that ultimately got the GTO restored.

“That was one of her dying wishes,” Mr Wolf said of his wife, who had worked in the Newtown Middle School cafeteria staff for many years.

North Haven-based Nitemare Performance restored it, something with which Mr Wolf was comfortable, since he and his wife had met the owner.

As a tribute to his wife, Mr Wolf had a mural air-brushed onto the back of the white GTO. It includes an image of Barbara’s face along with other images meaningful to the couple, including those of Disney World and Hawaiian palm trees, representative of two of their favorite vacation destinations; as well as purple ribbons in recognition of pancreatic cancer awareness. It was a collaborative effort among Mr Wolf and his children to come up with the image details. He hired Alan Pastrana at Plainville-based Pastrana Unlimited to do the work.

“I wanted to do something for her. We grew up in the car together. We used to drive around with the top down in the winter,” Mr Wolf said. “I’m glad I did it. Everyone who knew Barbara looks at the car and thinks about her.”

Mr Wolf drove his daughter to the church for her wedding in August of 2016, just after the restoration was completed. It was the unveiling of the car in its like-new condition, proving a way for Christina’s mom to be part of her big day.

When the car was new, it was one magazine’s car of the year. Now that is has been restored, it was highlighted in a magazine once again, featured in the most recent issue of Poncho Perfection magazine, which is dated October, 2019.

Mr Wolf’s GTO does not see the streets very much. He will drive it only to the occasional car show on picture-perfect weather days. It obviously has special meaning to Mr Wolf, and he believes friends of Barbara will appreciate hearing about his rolling memorial to her. Mr Wolf is not on Facebook, but Barbara was, and he is hopeful her friends will see his efforts and remember her with a smile.

“It would be nice if they can see what I did,” said Mr Wolf, who reached out to The Newtown Bee with the article idea in late November.

“I’ll die with the car. The kids can fight over it,” Mr Wolf said.