Garrett Reed, 27, a social-media influencer and marketer living in Blairsville, Ga., on his 1984 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS, as told to A.J. Baime.

In February 2013, when I first heard about Instagram, I started a page about American muscle cars. I was a freshman in college, so I didn’t have a lot of time to put into it. But I kept growing it. At one point, I realized it had become a thing. Some 2.2 million people now follow Americanmusclehd. I was constantly posting images of muscle cars, living vicariously through others, because I had no muscle car of my own.

In 2017, I decided to build out my own car. I had worked at a classic-car dealership while in college and had come to like G-Body cars. The G-Body is a platform that General Motors used to build mid-size, rear-wheel-drive vehicles in the 1970s and 1980s. Buick Regals, Oldsmobile Cutlasses, Pontiac Bonnevilles, etc. A friend of mine living in Las Vegas alerted me about a 1984 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS for sale in Henderson, Nev. He sent me pictures. I bought it for $5,200, and had it shipped to Georgia in June 2018. I started to build out the car with performance parts.

Mr. Reed is a fan of vehicles that General Motors built on the G-Body platform in the 1970s and 1980s, including this Monte Carlo SS.

Mr. Reed is a fan of vehicles that General Motors built on the G-Body platform in the 1970s and 1980s, including this Monte Carlo SS.

The car has its own presence on social media, as Mr. Reed posted details and images of the car’s story. It is a rare vehicle stolen and found again over a month later, in perfect condition.

The car has its own presence on social media, as Mr. Reed posted details and images of the car’s story. It is a rare vehicle stolen and found again over a month later, in perfect condition.

Because of my Instagram page, I found a bunch of sponsors who gave me parts. I put a new Chevrolet LS crate 6.2-liter V-8 engine in, and I got the Monte Carlo running just in time to take it to something called the Hot Rod Power Tour in 2019. This is a traveling car show, and it was going to start that year in Concord, N.C., a suburb of Charlotte.

A bunch of friends and I drove our cars five hours, checked into a hotel, went to the show the next day and came back to the hotel. The next morning I woke up, looked out my window and the car was gone.

It was a shocking moment. You never think that this is going to happen to you. I called the police but we had no leads. I thought: I know how this goes. They chop up the car, sell the parts and that’s that. I was so upset, I tried to put the car out of my mind. I dealt with the insurance and got a check. Meanwhile, I put the saga of my stolen Monte Carlo on social media, and it got a massive reaction.

The Monte Carlo SS is a favorite among fans of 1980s muscle cars.

The Monte Carlo SS is a favorite among fans of 1980s muscle cars.

Mr. Reed has built out his car with high-performance muscle-car parts, such as this Sparco steering wheel.

Mr. Reed has built out his car with high-performance muscle-car parts, such as this Sparco steering wheel.

Five weeks after my car disappeared, I got a letter from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. My car was found in a field by a couple kids a 20-minute drive from where it was stolen. It was in an impound lot in a neighborhood where a friend of mine lived, so I called him and asked him to go look at it. He called me and said, “You won’t believe this. The car is intact.”

He was right: I couldn’t believe it. I think that the car got so much online publicity, the thieves were afraid to try to sell any part of it. I got it back in September 2019, and I had to rebuy it back from the insurance company. Meanwhile, the car has become famous, for a reason I never could have imagined.

People come up to me all the time and they know all about the story. I am just so excited to have my car back in my possession.

Mr. Reed put a Chevy crate LS 6.2-liter engine in this car, and has taken it to LS Fest, a car show specifically for LS-engine vehicles in Bowling Green, Ky., where Chevy builds its Corvettes.

Mr. Reed put a Chevy crate LS 6.2-liter engine in this car, and has taken it to LS Fest, a car show specifically for LS-engine vehicles in Bowling Green, Ky., where Chevy builds its Corvettes.

—Write to A.J. Baime at myride@wsj.com.