So, this is how it started............

Well, truth be told this is how it started:

No, that is not me by the Firebird but that is my original 1965 Mustang that I built with help from my father back in the late 80's.

The car started out as my sister's car, though she did not like it after getting into an accident. She was driving home in the rain and her high school band teacher pulled out in front of her. She slammed into the passenger side of the VW van he was driving, ejecting him from the bus where he ended up breaking the glass out of the driver side door of the Mustang with his head. I helped my father bring the car back to life but it was changed from the very good looking 6 cylinder car it was when my sister got it.

She fell out of love with the car, which led to my next car, a 1983 4 cylinder Mustang that she bought and I later inherited........but that is a different tale. After I became the owner of the '65, I decided I no longer wanted the factory white car, I wanted a black Mustang. The original car was a 1965 6 cylinder with a 3 speed manual but had been swapped to an automatic at some point in its past. It was white with a white vinyl top, a death sentence for Florida cars. The vinyl top was damaged during the crash so we removed it. Once removed we found corrosion by the gallons on the drip rails, above the doors. I did my first paint job ever on the car and it was pretty bad. Black cars show everything in the body work. I did not do a terrible job but had no clue about blocking a car out. Mind you I was doing the work while I was 14-15 years old. 

During the time of body work, a friend of the family had a 65 and a 66 Mustang they decided to sell off. The 65 had a 250 c.i. 6 cylinder that had been blown, though it should never have been in the car as it was swapped by a previous owner. They had bought a 1966 that was a 289 V8 car that had been crashed and were planning on installing the drive train into the 65. I scrapped the idea and swapped the 289 and running gear to my 65, while moving my old six over the the 65. I tried to sell it for a short while but it was so rusty nobody wanted it. Now it would have been a prime car to restore compared to half the cars left out there. I ended up scrapping it out for parts.

Not long after starting to drive I found out how light 1965 Mustangs are on the rear axle. I was being the typical teenage driver and looking at girls, rather than paying attention to the traffic light I was sitting at. I looked up and the turn arrow was green and had been, so I stomped the gas to get through the light. When I got to the middle of the intersection turning left, I hit a patch of water in the road and that sent my wheels spinning and the car fishtailing. I responded by hitting the brakes, sending the car into a spin and right off the side of the road into a parked car. The low speed crash resulted in my contact with a 70's model land yacht's rear bumper. I left black paint on the bumper but caved in my drivers door to the point that the steering wheel was stuck and unable to turn. The door pulled the door post in with it, bending the quarter panel and the striker jamb. 

I spent the next year and a half replacing both rear quarter panels and repainting the entire car. I got it done right in time to take it to Nashville Auto Diesel College. The car got me from Florida to Nashville a few times, drove around Nashville and lived for a while back in Florida. The final trip back from Nashville the car overheated badly, which resulted in a head gasket failure. I drove it for a while in Florida until the gasket went fully. The drip rails were never truly fixed by me, I patched them with fiberglass reinforced bondo and it simply helped rust the roof worse. The car sat at my parents house while I was courting my then girlfriend, which turned into my wife. My parents were moving to another city and had to get rid of my two sheds full of parts and my original car. I had no money to fix it or anywhere to put it so I agreed to sell it. We hauled the sheds full of parts to the scrap yard. Wish I had them now!

Fast forward to 2003, where I found the Rustang and my wife followed through on a promise made to me when I sold my 65. She had promised me that when we had more money and somewhere to put a car, I could get a replacement. This is the story of the car and the restoration of it. I'll also be posting pictures and details of other cars that myself and another Mustang fanatic friend of mine, Lysle, will be working on.

The current list is my Guardsmen Blue 1964.5 coupe, powered by a 260 c.i. V8. Lysle has a Rangoon Red1964.5 coupe, also powered by a 260 c.i. V8. He also bought a Skylight Blue1964.5 convertible, powered by a 260 c.i. V8. There is also a 1966 289 V8 car that has extreme rust but has not been decided on if we are going to fix it in the end or use it for parts. 

So, here it goes.