I'm 46 years old and I recently bought my first real car. Sure, I've been driving since I was 16, and have owned a number of vehicles since then. Paid $100 for my first car, a '65 Chevy. Owned 2 or 3 other cars after that. Had a Catalina with a big engine. That boat would really cruise down the interstate and feel like you were doin' 30. That was pretty nice! But for the most part, cars were just transportation for me. Never really worried too much about styling or what they looked like, as long as they were clean, good mechanically and had a great sound system. Then I bought a '76 Ford van with a straight 6. The motor had been badly neglected. Got a deal on it because I showed the owner all the chunks in the oil. He looked at me kind of funny when I was pulling the dipstick, like he didn't even know how to check the oil... Replaced the valve seals, and did a little rigging on the rocker arms. Got another
100k out of that motor before I sold the van for other reasons. Bought an '89 GMC van new, and then decided I liked the Astros better. I've been the owner of an Astro van for quite a few years now, and it has over 200K on it. I do a lot of yard sales, flea markets, and auctions. Spend a lot of time at the lake, and this van, the way I have it set up inside is perfect for me. I get kind of tired of driving that box around all the time though, so I thought I'd pick up a second vehicle that got better gas mileage for those times I didn't need a van. Only thing I knew for sure that I wanted in a car was rear wheel drive. These days that really limited my options. The dealer that I bought my Astro van from had a '98 Mustang that looked like brand new except for one little scuff on the trim panel, and a couple of repairs on the cloth seats. He's a Mustang guy at heart. He's owned a number of them as his daily drivers. He ordered a "Bullet" and sold it a year later for more than he paid for it after putting quite a few miles on it. Guess the dealer in him overrode the Mustang in his heart, lol! This is getting long winded, so in closing I'll say that since he didn't lie to me about the van when I bought it, and he told me this Mustang was good mechanically I believed him. Got a deal on it because it's only got a 3.8, and has a 5 speed. Bad combination, but that was fine by me because I wanted something that got pretty decent gas mileage for my second vehicle so I bought it. I LOVE THIS CAR!!! There's something that happens to me when I drive this car. Something about driving a car with a manual transmission. Instead of taking shortcuts to get to my destination I find myself taking the longest route. It feels so much different driving so much lower to the ground compared to sitting way up there in that box of a van! You feel like you're part of the road. It's only got a 6 cylinder, but there's an unmistakable powerband bump that comes on about 2700rpm. Never had a vehicle that would take over like that. They all accelerated gradually and evenly. I LOVE THIS CAR!!! It had tinted glass, a bra, and headlight covers when I bought it. Dark blue. It looks sharp! I'm a bit afraid to take the bra off since it goes back to the previous owner before the dealer I got it from. I can't believe those tinted headlight covers are legal for night driving. They're coming off the next time I drive it at night. Almost stopped and took them off the first time. It had some very low profile 15" tires on it, and I didn't really care for that because it left quite a gap between the wheel wells. I put some 235/60s on the rear, and a pair of 215/65s on the front. The height of the vehicle sets just right, and the width and height of the tires fill in the wheel wells just fine. The fronts are maybe a tad too wide, as they throw a bit of splash on the side of the car, but it's not turning out to be my daily driver anyway. I only seem to get in the mood to drive it on nice days, and we have those throughout the year here in SE Missouri. This was intended to just be a totally functional, economical utility vehicle, and now it's somehow turned into a mood thing... I LOVE THIS CAR!!! Well, I was closing a while back wasn't I? I just want to say I really enjoy following this group. Mostly just been lurking, and learning, and enjoying the fun comments that some of you post. I've only made one other post here when I got some amplifier wiring help and I appreciate that. I see most of you here have V8's, and probably don't even consider my car a "real" Mustang, but I'm wondering if any of you have any suggestions on things I can do toward engine and/or handling improvements. Not that either is bad, but they can always be made better right? Thank you all for running a fun and very informative group. I wish I could help out some, but even though I'm very mechanically inclined I haven't had the need to work on my vehicles all that much so I'm not very knowledgable in that area. I've always felt that every hour of preventive maintenance and listening saves 10 hours of repairs, and so far that's worked out pretty good for me. Maybe that in itself will help some people! Thanx again, Sam- posted
19 years ago