I've always been a Mustang fan. My first car was a 1966 Mustang Coupe 289 automatic that was Prairie Bronze and had a pony interior and a vinyl roof. I dropped out of the car scene after I divorced my 1st wife (no space to work on the cars, and no money to buy parts), but I'd managed to own eight Mustangs of various vintages between 1965 and 1993, and the ones I have pictures of are shown here. Please pardon the size and quality of the pictures because they were all taken with cheap film cameras (remember those?) and the pics required scanning and rather severe photoshopping to bring them close to presentable.
This was a nothing special 1967 coupe with a 289 2-barrel automatic. The passenger side quarter panel was mostly bondo (more than an inch thick in places). And yes, one picture shows the car with a 6-foot FireStik CB radio antenna. The car as you see it here is the way I bought it (with the exception of the CB antenna and associated gear).
travelled with a fast crowd, and to say the least, it was my desire to be able to keep up with everyone else. It seemed like everyone else was running Camaros, Chevelles, and Firebirds (with the occasional Hemi 'Cuda thrown in for good measure), and there was even a guy with an AMC Matador that came around once in a while.
This car is was originally equipped with 390 and a 4-speed toploader. While performance was decent, the car was absolutely useless for going around corners, so I dropped in a moderately "tuned" 302. I bought the motor in used condition for $50, and it had been sitting outside with a tarp over it for about a year. I dropped it in the car, and without even oiling the valves beforehand, I fired it up. It ran GREAT!
I was going through what you might call an "exotic induction" phase and even took a stab at trying to make this cross-ram setup a viable for the street. Alas, the Holley 600 carbs (yeah, the ones with vacuum secondaries - yuk!) would vibrate out of adjustment between stoplights, so off it came.
About that time I found a cherry 65 Fastback with a plain-Jane brown paintjob and a 2-bbl 289 automatic drivetrain. I tried for three weeks to sell the '68 and one kid came by, but said the car was too fast for him. So I bought the '65, swapped the 302/toploader with the 289/automatic, and sold the 68 the next day to some guy who thought the '68 had a "killer stereo".
While the engine/tranny swap was taking place (it took 8 hours to get both cars running from start to finish), I decided to try out a set of dual Carter AFB's running suicide linkage. Night and day! Jeeze-Louise! 13-second quarter miles on pump gas and street tires - in the mid 1980's. I slapped on some paint, put in a 4-point roll cage, 'glass seats (non-adjustable), and 5-point harnesses.
I leased a 1988 GT, and when it was about 6 months old, I wrecked it. I was going through a S-curve on a two-lane road (and I was admittedly going a little fast than the speed limit, but only 5mph over). As I was going through the first part of the turn, a rabbit jumped out of the bushes into my lane. Purely by reflex, I lifted off the accelerator a little.
The rear suspension unloaded, the back tires lost traction, and the car swung around. The next thing I know, I'm going through the turn sideways. Just as the car was coming to a stop (and I was congradulating myself for not hitting anything), a new Nissan Sentra came from the other direction, and t-boned me.
End result was that the Mustang's passenger seat was only 6-inches wide, the radio popped out of the dash, and I was bathed in hot coolant (from the Sentra). Fortunately, I was wearing my seatbelt, so my injuries were restricted to mild 3rd degree burns on my right arm and a scrape on my thumb. The Nissan driver WASN'T wearing his belt, and came away with a concussion and a broken knee cap.
The rabbit survived, and I coulda swore I saw him flip me off as he disappeared into the bushes. Here are the pictures.