A moped stolen from a northern Italian town in 1984 has been traced and returned to its rightful owner after four decades.

The case of the missing moped – a dark grey Garelli that these days might be classified as vintage – was finally cracked by police in Volpiano, a suburb of Turin, after they spotted a 64-year-old man travelling without a licence plate during a roadside check.

“This guy was riding this scooter without a licence plate and so he was stopped,” said Americo Celani, commander of the Carabinieri in Volpiano. “This gave us an indication that something was wrong.”

A distinguishing feature of the stolen Garelli was that it did not have a licence plate because registration was not legally required on 50cc mopeds in Italy until 1994, a decade after Antonio Smiglio’s vehicle was stolen from outside his home in Vado Ligure, a town in the Liguria region where his family lived.

Celani said police were also able to match the moped by the details on its frame and using various past reports. “So through that we traced the fact that this moped had been stolen 42 years ago.”

The man riding it was charged with possessing a stolen item although he was not the thief, Celani said.

After being reunited with his Garelli, Smiglio, who now lives in Saluzzo, a town close to Cuneo in the Piedmont region, told La Repubblica that when the police called to tell him they had found it, he “immediately thought it was a joke”.

The moped was a 16th birthday present to himself in August 1984, paid off in instalments with money saved from working in a bar and doing odd jobs. “It felt like I owned a Kawasaki,” he said, referring to the Japanese manufacturer of high-speed motorbikes.

But in December that year, the moped, along with several others, was stolen from where he had locked it outside his home. At the time, because mopeds did not have licence plates, “it was a bit like stealing a bike”, he said. “How much I cried.”

He was initially worried to collect the vehicle owing to fears it might be ready for the scrap heap. But it was in good condition, he said, and after a few repairs he intends to ride it again along the Ligurian coast.