Page 16 - IAV Digital Magazine #625

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Auto Worker's Lost Wallet Found Under Hood 11 Years Later
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OWqtV76n-RI
By Ben Hooper
Aug. 15 (UPI) -- A mechan- ic working on a 2015 Ford Edge brought into his Minnesota shop made a startling discovery under the hood: a wallet that had been lost by a Michigan Ford plant worker 11 years earlier.
Richard Guilford, who is
now retired, said he remembers the day he lost his wallet while working on vehicles that had been shipped to the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne after coming off the assem- bly line in Chicago with electrical issues.
"I never wore sweatpants to work, but I did that day," he told KARE-TV. "And I
had my wallet in my shirt pocket."
Guilford and his team searched for the missing wallet, but there were 2,000 vehicles on the floor and they eventually had to give up. He said the wallet contained his driver's license, his Ford Motor Co. ID, $15 in cash and $250 worth of Cabela's sporting goods gift cards he had intended to use to buy Christmas presents for his kids.
The wallet's final fate remained a mystery for 11 years, until Chad Volk, owner of LC Car Care in Crystal Lake, Minn., was working on a 2015 Ford Edge brought in to have its cooling fans replaced.
Volk said he was attempt- ing to put the air box back into place under the hood, but it wouldn't fit right. He removed it again and found Guilford's leather wallet sit- ting on top of the transmis- sion.
"I was surprised. You find stuff all the time, usually tools," Volk told the Detroit
Free Press. "I looked through it and I see a Ford Motor Co. badge. I thought, 'I'm going to try finding this guytoseeifIcangetit back to him.'"
Volk was quickly able to find and contact Guilford on Facebook, and the wallet was in the mail the next day.
Volk said the Edge had about 150,000 miles on it when it came to his shop.
"It's well-traveled currency," Guilford joked of the $15 cash, which was still safe inside the wallet, along with the rest of its contents.
Guilford said Cabela's has agreed to issue him new gift cards, so he can keep his preserved wallet intact as a keepsake.
"Some things in it were hot and crisp, think of how hot that car got," Guilford said. "It doesn't look like it ever got wet, just hot. That little corner kept [the wallet] completely dry and com- pletely preserved. I want the wallet to stay as it is. It is a memento."
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