So here it is. 3395 lbs. of burnin' German love!

Yes Folks, It's a 1981 American market 380SL in all it's faded glory! It was, at the same time, a fabulous car and a devil in drag. These cars were stupid expensive to buy and own when new and worse (as I learned repeatedly) to restore when old. A small 8" long hose connecting the motor to the heating coil: $50.00 and 3 weeks wait from the father land. A new, rebuilt, steering box ("no high tech rack and pinion in our panzer"): $2500.00!!! Need a new dash cap? Oh, sorry that will be $2000.00 for a whole dash as the cap isn't separate and it will need about ten hours to install it. Heaven help you if you want to do it yourself....... We do have a cheap, ill fitting vacu-formed cover that you could buy for $99.00 and spend the rest of your natural life fooling with to make it look kind of nice...... Try and find a vacuum leak so my engine will run smoothly. Just try and fix the convertible lock leaver! Just try and fix my fancy automatic door locks! I dare yuh! Do you find the suspension a bit flabby? only one option out there. Do you want more modern wheels and tires? Good luck.... What? You want more power than we decided was needed? (say this in a German accent) You Americans are so silly. You always vant more of this und more of that! Just drive it the vay vee designed it! Despite how great a car it was (and it really was fun to drive) it drove me more crazy than I drove it! When I finally yelled "I surrender!!" and sold it, it was literally falling apart as it drove out of my driveway to it's new home! Thank God The new owner knew exactly what he was getting into. 

 So here I was with the pittance I had received from the sale of my Dad's Merc. in hand looking for another project. The deal was that I would take half of the Mercedes money and purchase another car to throw money at. The other half was going towards a vacation on Maui for my long suffering wife. Hopefully she would allow me to come along as well! That day I went down to my mechanics shop to ask him what his opinion was on fun project cars. He had never worked on the Merc. He told me that it was outside his expertise and he'd waste my money learning the car. I always respected that. I also respected his "If it ain't broke..." attitude and his approach of getting good value out of the things you have in life. He had serviced my Wife's Malibu Maxx and my Toyota Sienna for a few years now and I always had good results from the work he did. I popped the big question. I told him I was looking at older Mazda RX-7s and Toyota Supras etc. or maybe an older Mustang...........

 Mustang? (he said) I have a mustang that I might be convinced to sell you. I pounced. He told me it was a 1982 GT and it was sitting under a pile of spring snow in his driveway if I wanted to take a look. I shot out the door faster than a wild horse running free with too much cash in it's pocket! Snow sprayed his business front as I flew down the street to check out the possible (he had me at 1982 Mustang GT) new metal mistress in my life.