Kevin Donovan once had a bad case of chicken pox. He was 18 and ducking for cover. It was as though the disease moved through his body like a voracious animal. That night, his mother stopped by his bedroom with an ominous gift: Her boyfriend put Donovan’s car in drive and shut off the ignition.
But only once. A second time.
There, under the shifter, was a stack of boxes, old concert posters and clothes. The car was gone.
The next day, Donovan entered a suspenseful wait, sitting alone in his parents’ house, wondering if the car was gone forever. When the wait was over, he found himself alone on the streets of Toronto.
This was the week before the 51st Grey Cup — the professional Canadian football’s championship. It would be an emotional blow, realizing his car, a 1988 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, was no longer a part of his life.
On Sunday morning, Donovan heard from the car’s owner, Ingrid Binning, that his car was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a boat heading to the Middle East.
The problem? Donovan’s car wasn’t supposed to be on a boat.
For the next week, the single father knew nothing of his car, moving back and forth to Toronto to work and book advance flights to the Middle East, searching frantically for the car.
Ingrid Binning, the daughter of a former Canadian ambassador, discovered that Kevin’s car had accidentally strayed from his suburban driveway to a dock in Halifax, where he had shipped it to his new home outside the Netherlands. The Ford Fairlane Windstar missed its Atlantic crossing at the last minute, and in an “unusual circumstance,” had been stuck in a parking garage.
Binning went on television to explain the unusual situation. The media lights shined on her. But by then, Kevin Donovan already had his jolt of saltiness fixed. The global hoopla had turned into a week of despair, reliving a nightmare. He kept thinking about the papers in his storage unit, back in Canada, where the car had been listed since 1989 — “Ford Trans Am, 21,” reads the listing.
“I thought, ‘Well, it’s been 21 years. Why is this still there?’” he recalled.
He opened the door to the unit to see a trash can full of old newspapers, including “The Star,” a once-famous English tabloid. It contained a notice of a tax inspection, along with financial reports from previous years, and Kevin Donovan held up the newspaper clipping and spotted his car’s logo: a cut-out of the Detroit skyline. He wasn’t even sure what quarter was printed on the parking violation — whether it was “0” or “51.”
He called the number on the scrap of paper. A well-dressed man answered, and he confirmed that Kevin Donovan’s car was indeed in the lot. He explained that the vehicle had arrived on a voyage that had included a stop in Germany, where Kevin Donovan was to be honored at a national party event.
“I said, ‘So you really want me to do this, so you can attend the party?’” Donovan recalled. “‘I mean, I’m trying to take my car on the journey of a lifetime.’”
Her client agreed to bring Kevin Donovan’s car home. The following day, the actress Helen Mirren was spotted at a local airport. Mirren, who had attended the party, still remembered Donovan’s car.
At one point, Donovan heard a faint voice around the corner: “Hi, I’m Helen Mirren. How do you do?”
His car was home, the Globe and Mail reported. The journey’s final destination was the Middle East. It had come home. And Kevin Donovan, seeing his sense of vindication, acted delighted.