drichard said:
Hi everyone,
I'm looking to buy a classic Mustang, preferably a coupe of the early years. I'm ona budget, but not a mechanic, which means I can afford neither a fully restorated one nor a project. Can I get a decent driver for around $5k ? And what should I be careful of ? I know of the rust problem, I guess I can spot an engine that will fail in few miles, but what else is important ?
Thank you for helping a classic newby...
I assume this will be a casual driver, and your 2001 will be your daily?
Take it from me, if you are not mechanically inclined you do not want to buy a $5000 car. You may find a decent 65/66 6cyl coupe, but that's it. I do most of my own work, and when I started my search 5 years ago for exactly what I could afford, (5k also) I was very disappointed and realized I would easily spend another 5k just making it look real sharp much less also running sharp. I then decided to buy the best car I could afford that I could use right away, and I did it with the help of
www.jjbest.com. I spent over twice as much initially but not out of pocket, and defineitly saved money in the long run. You would be surprised how much better of a car you can get for that range, not to mention way less headaches. You'll only have to part with 2k of your 5 up front, and even if you wanted to finance it for 5 years it would cost you around $150 a month. I paid it off in 1 1/2 years and saved alot with the simple interest set up.
Trust me, it'll take you quite some time to cherry pick a local car within 5k and you will still have no gaurantee's. Likely you will experience a string of repairs begining with your first inspection, be into it for another few grand with little enjoyment, and find your self loosing interest and selling it for a loss.
Also, get a set of ford manuals for what ever year you choose and learn how to do the basicis yourself. If you have any common sense these cars are not hard, almost everything is a nut and bolt set up and what you can not diagnose we can help point out the problem and the manual can help you fix it.
Just think through all your options is all I'm saying, this can be a very fun hobby and obviously the coool factor has already caught your attention. What you don't know is how many people buy stangs for the same reason and leave do to headaches, poor purchases and have a bad taste of the experience in their mouth for a long time.