Steve Cowdin tracked the one-of-akind car to its Indiana birthplace.

“Poor little guy sat in a shed for 60 years,” Cowdin says. “Just hoping somebody would give it some love.”

So he has.

From his garage on the wooded outskirts of Douglas County, Cowdin, 61, has restored the 1953 Micklitsch to its former, obscure glory.

The fiberglass body is sleek again, 8½ feet long, 2½ feet wide, complete with copper grille, stainless steel trim, mile-o-meter gauge, Model T battery and Briggs and Stratton engine.

The red vinyl seat is hardly a foot off the ground. It is fit for a kid. It was always fit for a kid, specifically John Micklitsch’s kid.

Cowdin read about the Midwest hobbyist in an old trade magazine. “Build your kids this plastic gas-engined car,” implored the cover. This car is not for Cowdin’s kids; they are grown and on to budding careers. They were never into cars anyway. Cowdin fostered other interests as a stay-at-home dad.

“There’s never enough time being a dad,” he says.

Never enough time for himself, his passion from his Southern California youth. His cars collected dust in the garage, including the first he bought at age 14 with $100 from his paper route: the 1958 MGA. Next was the ’59 Austin-Healey, which fit his drums as a long-haired rocker.

That was “the fast life,” Cowdin says. It took a family to slow down. It took sobriety, the understanding of a dangerous inheritance.

Cowdin’s dad wasn’t around for those days and nights of car tinkering. The old man wasn’t around much at all, like the father before him.

“That’s why I wanted to make sure I was around,” Cowdin says.

With his sons raised and gone, the 1953 Micklitsch was a return to something. Something pure.

There’s a big show coming up. Cowdin wants the car there. “Just to give it, I don’t know. ... Is attention the word?

Recognition?”

Just some love.