Make-A-Wish Fixes Stillwater Family's Old Jeep

An Oklahoma teenager battling cancer saw his wish come true Friday. The Jeep he grew up riding around in with his parents had fallen into disrepair, so he wished for it to be restored.

We were there when he saw his remodeled ride for the first time.

There was applause and sheer surprise, because Torbin Metz's 1985 Jeep looked nothing like it did the last time he saw it.

"The paint was gone and didn't have any tires and the seats were all broken, yeah, it was in pretty rough shape," Metz said.

The jeep was his mom's pride and joy back in the '80s. It was the first vehicle she ever bought on her own.

For a time, it was used to work the family's dairy farm, but the Metzes never could get rid of the old Jeep, so over time it collected dust and rust. But the memories never faded, especially for Torbin.

"Car seat in the back, bumping along, loving to go over the bumpy roads, flying around," his mom, Becki, said. "So, yeah, he was a Jeepster way back then."

But life for the family got bumpy last February, when, at 16, Torbin was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Torbin recalled that time as, "a lot of crying a lot of shock, my dad was in tears and I was in tears."

Becki said the diagnosis was, "beyond description. You can't imagine when the doctors tell you that your child has cancer and you don't know what lies ahead of you, just can't even imagine it.

Torbin went through 18 months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, forcing him to miss much of his junior and senior years at Stillwater High School.

"It was a pretty rough road," Torbin said.

But earlier this year, he got a call from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and he knew exactly what he wanted: for that old Jeep to be restored, so he could face a different set of obstacles.

"[I'm] looking to go on some more rough roads with this thing," Torbin said.

Jim Glover Chevrolet helped in the restoration process. Torbin wanted it to look just like it did when it was new.

Actually, he jokingly said he wanted it to look like an Audi R8. So, part of his surprise included getting to drive a new one of those for about an hour.

And while things may get rough behind the wheel of his new ride, everything else is smooth. He's beaten cancer and he'll start his freshman year at OSU in the fall.

"Conquering something like that kind of makes you realize that you don't really have a lot of control over what happens, you just kind of got to go with it and have fun," Torbin said.