The brother of missing Corrie McKeague has vowed to restore the serviceman’s first car after retrieving the vehicle from the Suffolk RAF base where the gunner was stationed.
Darroch McKeague, 24, visited RAF Honington, near Bury St Edmunds, to collect the moss-covered MG TF car and insisted as soon as he sat in the vehicle, he knew what he wanted to do.
Corrie, from Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, was aged 23 when he vanished after a night out in Bury St Edmunds in September 2016.
He was last seen on CCTV entering a loading bay/refuse collection area behind Greggs Bakery in Bury on September 24, 2016. He has never been seen since.
Police believe he got into one of the bins in the area but despite an extensive 20-week search of a landfill site at Milton, near Cambridge, his remains were not found.
MORE: 'I don't think we're ever going to find out exactly what happened' - Corrie's mum on three-year anniversarySpeaking to this newspaper, Mr McKeague said Corrie had been involved in an accident in the car and it had sat on the base unused for nearly four years.
"I imagined because it's been sat there for so long, that it would just be getting scrapped but when we got to the base, we saw that some of Corrie's friends had duct-taped the windows and put a tarp over it," he said.
"It is in a lot better condition than I thought, water has got in and there's moss on the seats, but as soon as I got in it, I remembered when he first got it because he passed his driving test just before I did.
"I remember how happy he was that he was driving in a two-seater convertible and he was on top of the world about it. I remember how much he hated it after he crashed it, because he was driving around in a dented car.
"So I spoke to my mum, I spoke to my wife Leah and my eldest brother Makeyan and we all decided it would be a good idea because I've struggled quite a bit in my head about everything.
"This is a really good positive distraction and I know that Corrie would have loved for that car to be fixed."
MORE: Corrie McKeague search most expensive police investigation since 2009Mr McKeague married Leah McElrea in July 2018 after the couple met while handing out Corrie missing leaflets in Bury St Edmunds.
"I genuinely don't know what I would do without Leah or what state my mind would be in because on the days that I don't really want to get up, and I'd rather just lie in bed feeling sorry for myself, she doesn't let me," Mr McKeague said.
In terms of the restoration, Mr McKeague admits he is a novice and has launched a crowdfunding page on a new You Tube channel to help with his work on the car and intends to upload videos as he goes.
"I have never done a single thing like it before, I am not technically savvy with cars and I have no idea about it. So I'm going to need a lot of help, which is why I wanted to do the You Tube channel because I know there's so many people who can stumble across a video and be able to help.
"It's going to cost an awful lot to try to fix it."
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