DOWAGIAC — It was the summer of 1973 when Dowagiac’s Curt Rohdy drove past a car dealership in Mishawaka and saw a bright copper Jeep being unloaded from a car hauler.

To this day, he cannot quite say what it was about the Jeep that caught his eye, but he turned around and went back to the dealership to look at it, and he ended up buying it.

“I was 21 when I bought that. My dad had to cosign for it because I didn’t have any credit,” Curt said. “My dad was so mad at me when I brought that home — he thought I was buying Wagoneer — he wouldn’t talk to me for about four months. But when winter came around, he couldn’t get his truck out of the driveway. I told him to take the Jeep, and he drove it for the rest of the winter.”

Sitting with his sons Chad and Jason, Curt now laughs at the memory. As he continues to tell stories about the vehicle, he fiddles with the wheels on a small, copper toy car in his hand, a miniature version of the Jeep he bought so many years ago.

Curt recently had his family car — a 1974 Jeep CJ-5 that is now owned by Chad — turned into a commercial toy that is currently being sold by Greenlight Collectables, a toy manufacturer based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. The toy, which went on the market early this year, can be purchased at carriers of Greenlight Collectables in the Michiana area, such as Meijer or Hobby Lobby, while supplies last.

The opportunity to have the Jeep made into a collectible toy came after Jason, who now lives in Indianapolis, learned that a friend of his had a vehicle turned into a model toy by Greenlight. At his friend’s suggestion, Jason approached Greenlight about the Jeep and received a positive response from a designer at the company.

“[Greenlight] likes to make models of cars that already exist, that have a story, rather than just saying, ‘oh, we will do a yellow Jeep this time or a blue one,’” he said. “This way, the toys have more appeal. They tell a story.”

The process of taking the toy Jeep from an idea to reality took several months, but now members of the Rohdy family said they are excited by the fact that a part of their family history is immortalized in toy form.

“It’s kind of amazing. I never thought that something I bought so long ago would be turned into a downscaled car,” Curt said. “It’s especially neat that this happened in Dowagiac, that they would duplicate this down to the color, even.”

“It’s kind of surreal,” Chad added.

For Curt and his sons, the Jeep holds many memories that they said are precious to them that they want to remember. Curt can recall several harsh snow storms that he spent pulling neighbors out of ditches and snow banks with the aid of the CJ-5.

“I’ve never been stuck in that Jeep,” Curt said proudly. “All the years I’ve had it, and all the snow I’ve gone through — and I’ve pushed snow almost all the way up to the headlights with it, I’ve never gotten stuck.”

For Chad and Jason, the Jeep carries some of their earliest memories.

“It predates car seats,” Chad said with a laugh. “I remember riding in the back of it, up against the roll bar, holding on.”

“It’s been in the family for 40-some years,” Jason added. “It’s been passed down, and that is just really cool.”

Chad took over ownership of the vehicle in the late 1990s and rebuilt the car from the ground up after it had become damaged from years of disuse.

“There wasn’t really much left of it,” Chad said. “It had just rusted away. The only thing left original are the frame, grill and dash.”

Chad said he could not think of a reason that he dedicated so much time to restoring the vehicle other than the fact it has always been a part of his family. Now, the men of the Rohdy family said they plan to keep it in the family for years to come, adding that they are happy that Greenlight car has helped them do that and given them a memento of the vehicle that they can hold onto.

“It’s nice to be able to keep anything in the family that long,” Curt said. “We’ve had it this long. We don’t plan on getting rid of it.”