06-07-06: It was a 1967-68 Mustang - the car that got me motoring for life. People would ask what year it was and they got a different answer based on who they were and why they asked.
When I was a kid growing up in northern California my father bought a ‘68 Mustang from our next-door neighbor. It was a deep metallic purple, painted over the factory dark ivy green with a two-tone ivy interior. So you can picture a purple Mustang with a green interior right? It was a 6-cylinder example built in Metuchen, NJ. It actually spent most of its life there which is how it became such a rust bucket.
At the time there were tell tale signs of rust around the edges, but the true nature of the cancer was not known until one day when we got a flat tire. While jacking the car up on the roadside, the jack pierced through the frame rail and up through the floorboard. Further inspection revealed the entire undercarriage of the car was nearly gone. Deeming the car unsafe, the car was parked in the back yard for the next few years. Dad had in mind giving the car to me in some fashion.
When I was 14 a friend made us aware of a '67 Mustang he had out by his barn. It was a stripped body shell with no drive-train, interior or trim but clean of rust. He sold it to me for $100. The body became a surrogate skeleton for all the bits and pieces from our '68 rust bucket. While this might be a controversy, we had no title or paperwork for the '67 body we bought. So the VIN tags and identity from our dissolved ‘68 Mustang were affixed. All the year model identifying pieces that made the car a ‘68 were transferred except for one glaring detail. The side scoops could not easily be changed because they were installed into large cut outs that did not exist on the ‘68. So they remained as a life long tell tale of something funny going on.
In the two years until I got my driver’s license I spent every waking hour when not at school or work building this car. Most all the mechanicals from the ‘68 were in good order so they were cleaned and refurbished and then installed. Body work was a long and arduous journey. I was making $2.85 an hour at a local market so the budget didn’t include a paint shop. I ended up doing all the body work myself and eventually shooting the metallic blue paint job. My father guided me and I read a lot of books of body and paint work. The result was pretty good considering it was done in a garage by a first-time novice. No runs and the orange peel was almost just right in some places.
The interior was done in a two-tone blue crushed velvet “tuck-n-roll“ material. It was the mid 1980’s and I was a kid. Admittedly looking back it was on the pimp-mobile wavelength. One of the coolest features was this aftermarket overhead console I got at a swap meet. It had at least 15 switches and lights for absolutely nothing. But it looked sweet. Now keep in mind these were the days of “Knight Rider” on TV. Remember the “turbo button”? Yes I was a dork who convinced all my friends in high school that I had a turbo button. I would get their attention focused on the overhead console and press the big red lighted button. Simultaneously I would floor the gas. Some people actually believed it, especially the girls. Ah wild youth.
Unfortunately the 200 cubic inch six didn’t keep me happy for long. After the first year of driving it I finally convinced my dad to let me shoehorn a big-block 390 FE V8 into the Mustang. We happened to have one sitting in a crashed Galaxie 500. So, when summer came I spent three months doing a major heart transplant on the car. It was a huge job because most all the mechanicals had to be changed out. I had to locate a Ford 9” rear axle, new front disc brakes, a larger radiator and a host of other items. Big block Mustang parts had become scarce even in the 1980’s. Motor mounts and a transmission cross member had to be fabricated because I could not find any. Original exhaust manifolds were also hard to find or buy, so a set of custom headers were ordered up as well.
When all was said and done and a few bugs were ironed out I had a rip roaring big-block Mustang that would lay rubber across an intersection without mercy. The Mustang became legendary at my high school for a short time. Every Friday and Saturday night my friends and I would pack into the car and go cruising, sometimes street racing and other times just causing mayhem. It was the material of stories, memories and adventures in Roseville, California. Oh could I tell some stories. But I really should not.
At the time it didn’t look quite like it is pictured. It had 15” steel wheels with the famous Mustang “poverty-caps”. There were no stripes, no spoilers. It was as plain-Jane as you could get. It looked like a police car. This sleeper image was only juxtaposed by the deep rumble from the dual exhausts.
It was only later after college and I had gotten a real job that the car became the flashy be-striped California Special quasi Shelby looking car you see here. By the early 90’s my original paint job had faded and a lot of the bondo I applied in high school was falling off. I had a hobby side-job of selling classic Mustang parts at the time. I would buy parts-cars and dissect them, refurbish all the marketable parts and sell them though the clubs and at swap meets. I never got rich but I was swimming in Mustang parts.
So, the last transformation of the car came with a collection of Fiberglas parts including a California Special deck lid and rear tail-light panel. I repainted the car in a brilliant metallic blue clear coat with white stripes. The interior got a set of 1989 GT bucket seats and a fold-down rear seat. They bolted right in and the rest of the interior trim was made to match.
The engine finally got a good overhaul and was topped by a Edelbrock Torker II intake and a Holley 750 double pumper. The result was a car that had way too much power. A new set of lowering springs from Mustangs Plus in Stockton, CA and fat sway bars front and rear stiffened up the ride. Some Koni adjustable shocks were installed which really helped everything. All was bliss.
My wife was the first girl I let drive the car. Before we were dating we worked together selling cars. I was smitten with her indeed. One day she was making a lunch run for all us salesmen and I threw her the keys. All my pals were astonished as we watched her peel out of the parking spot. I knew she was the one.
A few more years went by and I found my self married with a growing family. The old Mustang had become a luxury out-living it’s practicality. After ten years of driving it, fixing it every weekend, and feeding it gas at the rate 8 mpg I had to let it go. I sold the car in 1997 to a friend of mine who was the manager of a large car dealership in town. He kept it for a while and sold it to another dealership manager somewhere in the California Bay Area.
That was the last I saw or heard of the car until a couple years later when I started getting parking tickets in the mail - a lot of parking tickets. They were all from the city of Oakland, CA. We responded by telling them that the car was no longer ours, that we had sold it. The succession of new owners had never filed their purchase with the DMV. To make a long story short we had a lot of hassles, nasty letters back and forth for a year before one day when the final notice came. It said this;“We have impounded your car and it has been at our storage lot now for 3 months. You must pay the outstanding parking tickets of $869 and get your car or we will be forced to sell it to recover the fines”.
This was a test of morality. I really thought about just going down there, paying the money and bringing my car home. They thought it was mine right? It was legally mine according to the DMV right? Well, there was that part about the fact I sold it someone. Just because they hadn’t filed the paperwork didn’t really make it mine. It was hard. A week or so later I called the city of Oakland one more time to see about the car and ask, “Ok all I need to do is pay the money and the car is mine right?’ I was so tempted.
They replied, “No the rightful owners apparently filed the papers with the DMV and came in today and got the car.” Problem solved.
After all the hours, days, weeks and years I spent living in and out of the thing, putting myself into it and driving it I feel like a part me is out there somewhere. I sometimes still wonder where in the world my old 1967-68 Mustang has gone.
So if you know of a 1967-68 Mustang with two VIN numbers niether of which have any relevance to the car itself, a Mustang with an identity crisis having '67 side scoops, a '69 motor, a '68 dash, '68 California Special rear bodywork, '70 brakes and rear axle I would be glad to hear from you. Contact me!
|
