Jack Klunder is president and publisher of the Daily News, but don't hold that against him. He's one of the good guys in this business.
Normally, I don't write about people working at the paper, but Jack has one of those great "You've got to be kidding me" stories with a poignant twist at the end.
I'll cut right to the chase. Thirty-five years after his 1966 Mustang was stolen from his college parking lot, the CHP called to tell his wife they had found it.
"They promised me they'd call if they found it," Jack says. "But that was in 1974."
He had been at basketball practice at Rio Hondo Junior College in Whittier and was going to grab a bite with friends when he saw his car was gone.
"It felt like someone had punched me in the stomach," he says. "I went to the administration building to report it stolen and there was a line of kids out the door.
"I was 18 and in a panic. I cut to the front of the line and told the woman my car had been stolen. She told me to get in line, that's why everybody was here. A car theft ring stole 60 cars that night."
Jack called his dad, who had bought the used Mustang for his college-bound son in 1974 for $800 - spending another $1,000 to fix it up.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
"He finally said, `Oh, no, we don't have theft insurance on the car.' They were trying to save a few bucks."
Wally Klunder was an optometrist by trade. He worked


hard for his money. When you have three kids with college educations to pay for, you cut corners any way you can to save a few bucks. Unfortunately, Jack's dad cut the wrong corner.
"Dad really kicked himself over that decision," he says. "He was really sick about it."
As the years went by the stolen Mustang became just another story Jack would tell his four girls growing up.
He would buy a Mustang for his oldest, Jennifer, now 25, when she turned 16, and one for his daughter Kerry a few years back when the Mustang was going through its retro look.
"I saw a black one on the lot that reminded me of my old Mustang," Jack says. "So I bought it."
And that's the car Dee Dee, his wife of 27 years, thought CHP Officer Jesus Gomez was talking about when he called in late 2009 to tell them they had found Jack's Mustang.
"What do you mean you found it?" she asked. "Jack just left for work driving it."
Not that one, Gomez said. The one from 1974.
"She was pretty shocked when I told her," Gomez said Wednesday. "She said, `You are going to make my husband so happy."'
And Jack was, until he and Dee Dee saw the car in the CHP impound lot. It had been through some hard times.
"I drove it home and was lucky to make it," Dee Dee said. "It was in pretty bad shape."
Jack thought about giving the car back to the woman who had bought it in 2001 not knowing it was stolen. She went to sell it last year and the buyer noticed the vehicle identification numbers didn't match. He called the CHP.
"I felt bad for her," Jack said. "She was a victim, too."
But then he began thinking about his dad, who died in 2005, and what he went through to buy this car for his son all those years ago.
"When my husband saw the car he told Jack he had to have it," said Joan Klunder, Jack's mom. "Jack said, `Dad, I can't afford it.' Wally told him he'd figure it out and he did. I always thought Jack felt the car meant more to his dad than to him."
For the last 10 months, the stolen Mustang has been getting the kid-glove treatment over at Auto-B-Craft, a body shop owned by one of Jack's morning coffee buddies, Dan Veltkamp. Two weeks ago it was time to bring it home. With his family and friends by his side, Jack stood in the driveway talking about his dad and how much this moment would mean to him.
Cruising down the street was a sparkling, completely restored black 1966 Mustang.
"I saw an awful lot of happy faces and more than a few tears when I pulled up," Veltkamp said.
It took 35 years, but the CHP made good on its promise to Jack Klunder in 1974. They called when they found it.