It took six years to restore the 1963 Chevy Nova.
A Los Angeles woman was brought to tears when she's given the car she's always dreamed about having.
Six years ago, Jeanie Pinto’s family bought the shell of a 1963 Chevy Nova to restore and ultimately give to her as a present.
The car was missing a passenger door, an engine, seats, windows and even rear-view mirrors.
For the next six years, her son, Donny, secretly devoted his free time to restoring the convertible without his mother knowing.
“We bought it sight unseen,” he told Inside Edition. “We literally thought we just put in some seats and a carburetor and drive it down the road. But when we saw it we were [like], ‘Oh my gosh.’ We were missing almost every piece.”
Jeanie’s husband, Tony, was in charge of ordering all the parts.
Tony admitted that he thought he was going to get caught “many times” because it is “hard to fool her.”
But fool her they did. The family recently presented her with the car and Jeanie immediately burst into happy tears.
Jeanie said the last time she was in a Chevy Nova like the one her family restored was when she was 14 and being driven home by a friend. It was the same day her father had died from heart failure.
“I fell in love with the car when I was 14 and it just never changed,” she said.
Driving the car again is like going back in time and has helped heal a terrible memory for Jeanie.
“It was a Kleenex moment for sure but we were able to pull it off,” Tony recalled the moment his wife saw the car. “She says, ‘You know this is my favorite car.’ The best thing was to pull this off without her knowing about it.”
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