Belive it or not...a 1977 Mustang Cobra II 302 4spd got it when I was 19. Had a ball in that car, moved on to a 1982 GT, 87 GT, 95 GT. Now my 17 yr old son drives a 2000 V6 set up like a GT with shaker hood, 17" rims lowered
1" very cool car. I plan on ordering a 2006 GT this spring when I pay off the 01 Goldwing.
The old man scored a perfect Wimbledon White / white '66 6-cyl coupe with factory air from my grandma for $1. She first got her driver's license when she was 63 and bought the car new. Then, by 1985, she was ready to quit driving so she gave it to my dad.
This led my dad to become a Mustang fan for a few years, when they became classics, so he bought a '66 Vintage Burgundy / black 6-cyl convertible with the paper 3-speed. He quickly swapped in a C4 because that transmission was a pain, and crappy.
He put one in the local garage's yard, never picking it up, and let it rot. It had a little rust but he gave up. The springs fell through to the trunk, and the cowl was eventually too shot to save. It was dragged off and parted out.
The convertible, he sold for a profit on the speculation at the time. I was 15 when he sold it in 1988. Truthfully, it may have been better I didn't get my hands on it, because the '77 Volare wagon I got took a beating, and the Mustang would have been stolen where I worked when I was 16 (S. Norwalk, CT).
He also did things like take grandpa's 74 6-cyl Nova, and make it a "warmed up" 350 stick with posi and heavy springs "for towing" and smoking unsuspecting kids. It was our sectret.
Since then I've been completely taken with the Mustang, and with doing mods like he did on his cars at the time. There were others, like the alarmingly fast 4-spd. '67 Biscayne wagon.
Now I have a restored T-code '67 with a 5-speed and a 302 with front
4-piston discs and air. Sooner or later it will get a 9" and a lot more cubes. Maybe a 390, or maybe a 347 stroker. I just got the front end tight, stable and quiet.
snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote in news:1123776421.163209.61670 @g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
When I first saw the '79 fastback, I vowed to have one someday. After a decade of fat, ugly, bulging cars with opera windows and vinyl tops, that clean style was a breath of fresh air.
Life took over - kids, family, etc. I never got one.
Ironically, my oldest son's first car was a '79 notchback he bought for $600. It had a wheezing V-6 in it that made a funny "whop-whop-whop" noise from somewhere in the engine. We never did find out what made that noise, but he drove it for a year like that.
He bought a wrecked '86 coupe and took the 302 hi-po out of it and put it in the '79. We drove that car to California. Crossing Utah on US 50, we opened it up. The speedo pegged at 85, but I know we were doing about
120. "Lines on the road just looked like dots." We slowed it down after
20 minutes at that rate because we saw a car coming (it turned out to be
15 miles away.) We covered 39 miles in those 20 minutes, so 120 was about right.
Now at age 53, I finally have my "79" in the form of an '83 GT, quite well preserved, with a 5 speed. I'd still love to have a first gen Mustang someday. It's amazing how many of them are still around - there are 5 or 6 in this town of 3000. It was an amazingly well designed, simple, and durable car.
Mine was an "And I never looked back" experience. Fall of 88, freshman in college, a guy in my dorm had a practically new 88 GT, white, 5 spd. He gave me a ride back from the satellite parking lot. Now, this guy not only drove it like he stole it, he also drove it like he was trying to get away in it. That did it for me; and I never looked back. Now on #4.
Friend's dad had an 89 GT that he ordered. He hated the red interior that usually came in the white GT's. He also ordered 3.08's in it along with the grey interior.
He put a supercharger, rollers, headers, etc... on right after getting it. He let me take it for a drive.
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