My Favorite Ride: A magazine cover brought his 1961 Oldsmobile 88 back 50 years later

The identity of the owner of certain two-tone 1961 Oldsmobile 88 I've been trying to track down for seven years? With help from My Favorite Ride reader Larry Webb, I've found her.

Mystery solved.

And the story Debbie Noe tells about the brand-new car her husband received from his parents as a high school graduation gift, well, it's the kind of story I always am looking to find.

And sometimes just stumble across.

Soon after getting the Olds in 1961, Noe had the engine modified. The car was fast. Very fast, and hard to beat on drag racing tracks in Indianapolis and Muncie.

When his parents found out he was racing the car, he had to park the Olds and hand over the keys. Then his dad discovered a hidden box of trophies at their Greenfied home and confronted Noe.

"What's this?"

"My drag racing trophies."

"So, you're that good, huh?"

"Yes dad, I am."

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Noe, who died in 2016, would end the story explaining how the trophy find got the car out of garage exile. "The next thing I knew, mom was frying chicken to take and they were going to the drag races."

Noe sold the car in 1964 when he joined the Army. Many years passed.

His wife said around 1990, Noe started reminiscing about that Oldsmobile. She often heard that car lover's familiar lament: "I wish I'd never sold that (fill in the blank) because I really loved that car."

His attempt to locate the Oldsmobile he'd sold so long ago was unsuccessful, so he started looking for a car like it. One day, he saw a picture of one, the same two-tone rust/orange, on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine. It was his dream car.

"He put the magazine in plastic and kept it because it was a beautiful picture," Debbie Noe said this week. "Of course, he didn't know at the time that it was his car."

She thinks it was 2011 when he saw that Hot Rod Magazine cover car for sale on eBay. "He called a friend of his who knows all about old cars like that and how much they're worth. He said it was a great price and the thing to do was buy it now."

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Noe purchased the classic car right then and had it delivered to his house in Brown County. He was pretty happy, and the Oldsmobile felt familiar.

"He was out in the garage piddling around with the car one day and he comes running in the house saying, 'Debbie, Debbie, Debbie, I think this car is mine.' He had done something underneath his car years before, I can't remember what it was, and had redesigned the part where you put the gas in."

He compared the vehicle identification number on the car in his garage to the one he got when he was 18. Match. Noe traced the owners and found a man in California who had purchased the car in 1964 "from a young man in Greenfield, Indiana."

The 88 still had a California license plate on the front when I first saw it parked on a downtown Nashville street for a charity car show.

Debbie Noe can close her eyes and put herself there. Her husband was over the moon about having the car back. He told her no one would believe the story that she found herself telling everyone. The cars in the show set off on a cruise that hot summer afternoon, and he was proud to be behind the wheel.

When he died five years later, it was hard for Debbie Noe to drive the car. Too many memories. But people kept asking about it.

Norman Noe had been well liked, and classic vehicle was a beauty. "He passed away in April, and I was getting calls in June from people wanting me to bring the car to shows. Everyone wanted to see it."

She remembers driving the car to the James Dean Festival in Fairmount that September, re-entering the classic car world. Norman, she said, enjoyed taking the car and their 1928 pickup to shows.

"I've won some trophies with the car since he passed," she said. "He always said the best trophy he ever got was a handmade one he found in the backseat from a family that said, 'Our award for the best car at this show.' Norman loved that."

There's more to this story, but you'll have to return next time for the second installment. They only give me so much space every week. And I've already missed my deadline.

I will be taking my camera out to the Noes' place in a few days to see the car in person again and take more pictures. It's been 12 years. That mystery photo I wrote about in 2016 is from downtown Nashville on Aug. 27, 2011.

It's the only one I can find, taken just a few months after Norman Noe got his car back.

Have a story to tell about a car or truck? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.