A week between posts. I've been busy – busy at work, and busy working the Internet and, this morning, the Amherst car show for that perfect Mustang.
In the process, I think I've discovered what constitutes the perfect Mustang. Literally speaking, it's a 1965 convertible with a manual transmission and a six-cylinder engine, one that's about halfway between the grave (more work than I can handle) and the showroom (more gleam that I can afford).
You know what this means? It means I'm looking for someone else's broken dream.
By that I mean a Mustang project car that some other 50- (or 60-) something took on a few years back. Its rails were okay, but the floor pans looked iffy. The fenders had been nibbled with rust too, especially on the right side. (The salty roadside puddle side.) The convertible top was ripped, as were the bucket seats. The radio was shot but the engine was still running.
My B.P. (Boomer Predecessor) saw past these flaws to the top-down memories of his youth, bought it, and dove right in. First he cleaned it from one end to the other. Then he took the engine apart, cleaning as he went, and put the small parts in Zip-Loc bags with labels. Next he replaced the right quarter panels. But then he found that the torque boxes needed to be replaced, and that the floor pans were too far gone to be repaired. So he replaced them, too.
The dollars went, and the months passed.
Slowly – so slowly he didn't notice at first – his enthusiasm began to dwindle. First a few days would go by between each work session in the garage, and then a few weeks. Eventually, his wife couldn't help but ask when he was going to put the seats back in "that car," tired as she was of stepping around the clutter in the garage.
Maybe it was before that, maybe it was after, but at some point in there my B.P.'s Mustang Dream died. What's worse, it rose from its grave to haunt him – parts everywhere, mice nesting in the engine, the rust beginning once again to creep. At night, the rusty bolts in their Zip-Loc bags would cry out for him.
That was a bit creepy.
So B.P. – or his wife, or the two of them together – decided the Mustang had to go. He'd get his money back out of it, maybe a bit more, and move on. Maybe take a cruise, maybe buy an ATV, maybe pay a college bill.
And that, perhaps, is where I'll come in, picking up a car that's lingering halfway between life and death. If the past week's possibilities are any indication, a Mustang like this one can be had for somewhere in the neighborhood of, say, $5,000. It probably won't be running. It may be several hundred miles away. But it is out there, somewhere, and it can be saved.
I'm making much of this up, of course. The listings on eBay and Craig's List and Mustang Classifieds describe only the cars, not the stories behind them. But you don't have to have much of an imagination to read between their lines.
Remember the old Westerns, when the pioneers in their wagon train would go creaking past the skeletons of cattle that died following the same dusty trail? That's the image all this brings to my mind.
Maybe, in the end, I'll follow my Mustang dream to that lush, green valley at trail's end. Maybe, like the guy whose Mustang I buy, I won't. There's really only one way to find out.
In the process, I think I've discovered what constitutes the perfect Mustang. Literally speaking, it's a 1965 convertible with a manual transmission and a six-cylinder engine, one that's about halfway between the grave (more work than I can handle) and the showroom (more gleam that I can afford).
You know what this means? It means I'm looking for someone else's broken dream.
By that I mean a Mustang project car that some other 50- (or 60-) something took on a few years back. Its rails were okay, but the floor pans looked iffy. The fenders had been nibbled with rust too, especially on the right side. (The salty roadside puddle side.) The convertible top was ripped, as were the bucket seats. The radio was shot but the engine was still running.
My B.P. (Boomer Predecessor) saw past these flaws to the top-down memories of his youth, bought it, and dove right in. First he cleaned it from one end to the other. Then he took the engine apart, cleaning as he went, and put the small parts in Zip-Loc bags with labels. Next he replaced the right quarter panels. But then he found that the torque boxes needed to be replaced, and that the floor pans were too far gone to be repaired. So he replaced them, too.
The dollars went, and the months passed.
Slowly – so slowly he didn't notice at first – his enthusiasm began to dwindle. First a few days would go by between each work session in the garage, and then a few weeks. Eventually, his wife couldn't help but ask when he was going to put the seats back in "that car," tired as she was of stepping around the clutter in the garage.
Maybe it was before that, maybe it was after, but at some point in there my B.P.'s Mustang Dream died. What's worse, it rose from its grave to haunt him – parts everywhere, mice nesting in the engine, the rust beginning once again to creep. At night, the rusty bolts in their Zip-Loc bags would cry out for him.
That was a bit creepy.
So B.P. – or his wife, or the two of them together – decided the Mustang had to go. He'd get his money back out of it, maybe a bit more, and move on. Maybe take a cruise, maybe buy an ATV, maybe pay a college bill.
And that, perhaps, is where I'll come in, picking up a car that's lingering halfway between life and death. If the past week's possibilities are any indication, a Mustang like this one can be had for somewhere in the neighborhood of, say, $5,000. It probably won't be running. It may be several hundred miles away. But it is out there, somewhere, and it can be saved.
I'm making much of this up, of course. The listings on eBay and Craig's List and Mustang Classifieds describe only the cars, not the stories behind them. But you don't have to have much of an imagination to read between their lines.
Remember the old Westerns, when the pioneers in their wagon train would go creaking past the skeletons of cattle that died following the same dusty trail? That's the image all this brings to my mind.
Maybe, in the end, I'll follow my Mustang dream to that lush, green valley at trail's end. Maybe, like the guy whose Mustang I buy, I won't. There's really only one way to find out.
1 comments:
Hi Mark:
Great blog!! Lucy sent me the website and I just started reading about your Mustang search. This is a great adventure you have begun and I look forward to following your progress.
And Happy Birthday!
Hilda
Post a Comment