This is jumping the gun a little, the project is a sure thing I just don't know exactly when I'll be getting to dive into it. A little back ground information. My dad currently owns a 65 A code convertible. Its a 4 speed car, original color is Rangoon red, plan black vinyl seats. Before the car came to my family it was with the second owner, who bought the car in the early 70's or late 60's. This man happened to be a good friend of my dads. Unfortunately health complication led to an early passing in the early 90's. The mans widow approached my dad and asked if he was interested in the car. He was and the car made its way into my family in or around 92. It never needed much work and my mom and dad had lots of fun using it as a cruiser on weekend and the like. I would have been 12 or 13 at the time we got the car so it's been around move of my life at this point. I have always loved it. Used to wax it and keep it clean. Was NEVER allowed to drive it lol. I did get a few opportunities to take it out. I always got to drive it in the Christmas parade with a few of my friends riding along. That was always SO much fun. Id get to go get them do the parade and then take everyone home. Once I got old enough that my dad would let me take it out for the occasional drive I went to college and haven't been around the house much since.
In 2006 I was living in Cleveland TN about an hour from my parents house. The car was running OK, but was smoking like it was on fire when you went down hills. We did some minor work to it, valve seals and such, but it didn't help much. At that point my dad decided that it was time to get the engine rebuild. Not a bad idea! This is where the real story starts though... With the motor out of the way, which had an unknown number of actual miles on it and was a replacement motor anyway, one thing lead to another. He wanted to rebuild the front end. OK great. We took it all apart new bushings, tie rods, springs, shocks, rebuild the spindles, you name it we did it. The car had apparently been hit at some point in the front, so the core support needed some attention. Let to that too. And we did. Hey the motor is out. Lets strip everything out of the engine bay and repaint it! We did that. Then we found a little rust in the floor pans. Out came the interior. We fixed all the bad metal we could find at the time.
Long story short. The car was almost completely disassembled. Then work moved me several hours away, so I couldn't go help with the car any more. My dad carried on with the work on and off for years working on all kinds of stuff. As time went on his work became more and more demanding and as he got older he started to loose interest in the car so less and less was getting done. Then basically about 8 years ago everything stopped and not much of note has been done to the car.
A couple of years ago I started talking about getting a project to work on. Looked at all kinds of things, but was mostly looking for something that didn't need a lot as I didn't have access to a lot of tools and would be working out of my garage. Now I've seen some people on here do amazing work in their garage, so I know it can be done. I just wasn't up for that challenge at the time. Well, one night on the phone I'm talking to my dad and he starts talking about the old mustang. He starts kicking around the idea of selling it! So, I make the statement of "I you get serious about selling the car give me a chance to buy it first". That was it for about 2 months. Then we are on the phone again talking and he brings up the car. He says you know I think I could get about 10K for the car as it sits. I'm like yeah you probably could.... Then he says "how about this. You can have the car. Do whatever you want to it. BUT. If you sell it you owe me 10K." Of course I'm like hell yeah I'll take that deal!
The same problem it there though. I dont have room for the car and all the boxes of stuff that go with it, so its been sitting in the same place for about 2 years now. As fate would have it life happened and the wife and I moved again. We are now just a few hours away, but at our new place I built a shop. Now we have room for all the activities! I've been working on the shop for months now, but it is finally close to ready to receive visitors or residents.
Work on this car will be slow as I have another car that I'm tinkering with as well and this car needs someone to take their time and try to do it right. I dont plan on trying to make it an original car, but it will be close. No restomod here. Just some tasteful upgrades here and there. The engine has been rebuilt, but its been hanging out on an engine stand since about 2007. My dad bought a ton of stuff for the car as well.
This post is long enough, so I'll through up a few pics of how the car sits now and update again later with plans for the car!
In 2006 I was living in Cleveland TN about an hour from my parents house. The car was running OK, but was smoking like it was on fire when you went down hills. We did some minor work to it, valve seals and such, but it didn't help much. At that point my dad decided that it was time to get the engine rebuild. Not a bad idea! This is where the real story starts though... With the motor out of the way, which had an unknown number of actual miles on it and was a replacement motor anyway, one thing lead to another. He wanted to rebuild the front end. OK great. We took it all apart new bushings, tie rods, springs, shocks, rebuild the spindles, you name it we did it. The car had apparently been hit at some point in the front, so the core support needed some attention. Let to that too. And we did. Hey the motor is out. Lets strip everything out of the engine bay and repaint it! We did that. Then we found a little rust in the floor pans. Out came the interior. We fixed all the bad metal we could find at the time.
Long story short. The car was almost completely disassembled. Then work moved me several hours away, so I couldn't go help with the car any more. My dad carried on with the work on and off for years working on all kinds of stuff. As time went on his work became more and more demanding and as he got older he started to loose interest in the car so less and less was getting done. Then basically about 8 years ago everything stopped and not much of note has been done to the car.
A couple of years ago I started talking about getting a project to work on. Looked at all kinds of things, but was mostly looking for something that didn't need a lot as I didn't have access to a lot of tools and would be working out of my garage. Now I've seen some people on here do amazing work in their garage, so I know it can be done. I just wasn't up for that challenge at the time. Well, one night on the phone I'm talking to my dad and he starts talking about the old mustang. He starts kicking around the idea of selling it! So, I make the statement of "I you get serious about selling the car give me a chance to buy it first". That was it for about 2 months. Then we are on the phone again talking and he brings up the car. He says you know I think I could get about 10K for the car as it sits. I'm like yeah you probably could.... Then he says "how about this. You can have the car. Do whatever you want to it. BUT. If you sell it you owe me 10K." Of course I'm like hell yeah I'll take that deal!
The same problem it there though. I dont have room for the car and all the boxes of stuff that go with it, so its been sitting in the same place for about 2 years now. As fate would have it life happened and the wife and I moved again. We are now just a few hours away, but at our new place I built a shop. Now we have room for all the activities! I've been working on the shop for months now, but it is finally close to ready to receive visitors or residents.
Work on this car will be slow as I have another car that I'm tinkering with as well and this car needs someone to take their time and try to do it right. I dont plan on trying to make it an original car, but it will be close. No restomod here. Just some tasteful upgrades here and there. The engine has been rebuilt, but its been hanging out on an engine stand since about 2007. My dad bought a ton of stuff for the car as well.
This post is long enough, so I'll through up a few pics of how the car sits now and update again later with plans for the car!