Trials of a 1982 Mustang GT
Welcome everyone. This blog has been started to chronicle my experiences restoring and modifying my 1982 Ford Mustang GT. My hope is that someone will benefit from my experience. If you can learn from my triumphs and failures or even have a few giggles along the way then it is worth it! So enjoy or ignore. It's up to you!
I am my fathers child. There are times I curse this and would like to deny it but, I have to face it, the lug nut hasn't fallen far from the tree. He was a passionate man who had a child like joy for experiencing new things. Of course my mother could go on and on (with good reason) about all of the negative consequences of this side of him but if you chose to look at the positive side this youthful enthusiasm had a hand in creating some great moments in his life and through shared experience my own. I have very fond memories of the excitement my sister and I felt each year when my dad would pull up with a new family car. Now I don't want you to get the impression that we were a wealthy upper class family. If we were, I certainly didn't know it. My mother held the financial reigns of our family my whole life growing up with a restraint and responsibility that would have made Ghandi proud! She wasn't cheap, just careful and God bless her for that. But woven through this practical, hard wearing fabric she created were just enough golden threads to keep it interesting to wear. Those threads usually came from my Dad.
Dad lived and worked in the day of the "Company Car". I believe at some point he sold product for a steel company to farmers and had to do a whack of travel so every year he would get a new car to use. Now initially these were not high end vehicles. Most were stripped fleet vehicles designed to provide reliable basic transportation (the term "Broom Pedlar Special" comes to mind) but each year they were new. If I scan my minds eye I can see a Dark metallic green Chevrolet Beaumont with a mint green interior, an appliance white Dodge Polara with a bright cherry red interior, a somewhat disappointing Metallic brown (can you say baby poo?) on brown Chevy Biscayne, etc. etc. but later in life he started buying cars on his own terms. From this era clouds of vehicles swarm like a tornado through my minds eye! A Beige on Beige Dodge Charger SE with a white vinyl roof and a 440 six pack, a Ford thunderbird with suicide rear doors and a swivelling front bucket seat, a 57 Volkswagen micro bus, a 57 Dodge with a push button automatic and fins the size of a sailing yacht (and a gigantic back seat.....). I could clog up the internet with only a partial list but that's not the point. The point is that even after I grew up and left home my dad loved to own and drive a dizzying number of automobiles.
I am just like him but I am as poor as a church mouse.
Now by poor I mean "North American poor". My wife and I have a nice house that's paid for, two cars, jobs, etc. etc. but we are both artists so, by our own choices, if we wanted to survive we had to live very close to the bone. Like my mother, I can mostly thank my wife for this financial success. So when I say poor I really mean absolutely no disposable income. None, Nada, Nix, zilch,...... you get the point.
In a somewhat long winded way this brings me to the last car my Dad owned before he passed away.
I am my fathers child. There are times I curse this and would like to deny it but, I have to face it, the lug nut hasn't fallen far from the tree. He was a passionate man who had a child like joy for experiencing new things. Of course my mother could go on and on (with good reason) about all of the negative consequences of this side of him but if you chose to look at the positive side this youthful enthusiasm had a hand in creating some great moments in his life and through shared experience my own. I have very fond memories of the excitement my sister and I felt each year when my dad would pull up with a new family car. Now I don't want you to get the impression that we were a wealthy upper class family. If we were, I certainly didn't know it. My mother held the financial reigns of our family my whole life growing up with a restraint and responsibility that would have made Ghandi proud! She wasn't cheap, just careful and God bless her for that. But woven through this practical, hard wearing fabric she created were just enough golden threads to keep it interesting to wear. Those threads usually came from my Dad.
Dad lived and worked in the day of the "Company Car". I believe at some point he sold product for a steel company to farmers and had to do a whack of travel so every year he would get a new car to use. Now initially these were not high end vehicles. Most were stripped fleet vehicles designed to provide reliable basic transportation (the term "Broom Pedlar Special" comes to mind) but each year they were new. If I scan my minds eye I can see a Dark metallic green Chevrolet Beaumont with a mint green interior, an appliance white Dodge Polara with a bright cherry red interior, a somewhat disappointing Metallic brown (can you say baby poo?) on brown Chevy Biscayne, etc. etc. but later in life he started buying cars on his own terms. From this era clouds of vehicles swarm like a tornado through my minds eye! A Beige on Beige Dodge Charger SE with a white vinyl roof and a 440 six pack, a Ford thunderbird with suicide rear doors and a swivelling front bucket seat, a 57 Volkswagen micro bus, a 57 Dodge with a push button automatic and fins the size of a sailing yacht (and a gigantic back seat.....). I could clog up the internet with only a partial list but that's not the point. The point is that even after I grew up and left home my dad loved to own and drive a dizzying number of automobiles.
I am just like him but I am as poor as a church mouse.
Now by poor I mean "North American poor". My wife and I have a nice house that's paid for, two cars, jobs, etc. etc. but we are both artists so, by our own choices, if we wanted to survive we had to live very close to the bone. Like my mother, I can mostly thank my wife for this financial success. So when I say poor I really mean absolutely no disposable income. None, Nada, Nix, zilch,...... you get the point.
In a somewhat long winded way this brings me to the last car my Dad owned before he passed away.
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