Ever since I was 13 years old I have always wanted a mid to late 1960s model Ford Mustang.

My dad laughed and said good luck. I didn’t even bother mentioning it to my mom.

My first car was not a Mustang. But it was a damn near pristine 1972 Plymouth Fury III , similar to this one. The interior was clean and roomy. I used to say I could carry 10 of my closest friends in the front and back seat and fit another five in the trunk. We bought it for $400.

It was a tank but it was fast. It also embarrassed the hell out of me. Back then, my husband was the obnoxious 14 year old pesty younger brother of my best friend and he had dubbed it the “Unripe banana boat”.

When it came time for me to go to college we found a different, slightly newer car that got more than 5 miles to the gallon the Fury III did, which wouldn’t have been so bad at 86 cents a gallon, but I couldn’t have made it from my home to my college without having to stop to fill the tank.

So, my grandpa helped me sell the Fury III for $700 to some guy with a wife and a new baby.

Now here I am, 34 years old, married to a car guy for over eight years. In that time a number of project hot rods and muscle cars have rolled through our household. For the last two years, Snoring Daddy has been working on cars and writing about it full time. (His first book comes out this May!) My husband has even worked on a few Mustangs that belonged to buddies of his, and put them in magazines. We have never owned a Mustang of our own. Until now.

This is my 1965 Ford Mustang Coupe. We bought it Monday for $225 when the opportunity fell into our laps. THAT is a whole other story in itself. It involves a creepy transmission guy arrested on three counts of child molestation and the hauling off of all the cars of his property. A guy we knew had traded this mustang to the “alleged” child molester for some shoddy workmanship that it now looks like won’t ever be corrected so the guy we know took the car back. And then sold it to us.

Yes. It’s a basket case.

I know it doesn’t look like much. If you will look at the lower back quarter panels there is a lot of rust and white discoloration. Someone FILLED it with concrete. ON BOTH BACK QUARTER PANELS. I’m not even kidding. Concrete. We can’t figure out why, except that maybe someone was trying to add weight to the back end.

The tires are all toast, one of them is gone and has been replaced with a spare. The trunk doesn’t close–the lock is missing–and the driver’s side window won’t roll up. The hood is completely missing, except for a small section of the metal still attached to one hinge but the headlamps (they are inside the car), emblems, and guages are all there. Who knows if they work though. And there are a myriad of other issues small and big that I don’t even begin to understand right now.

It’s a 260 three speed manual and its the most popular version of Mustang, “red on red,” meaning red paint and red interior. It’s one of the last of the 1964 1/2’s made.

And look, it even comes with the added bonus of a giant pile of rat droppings! (We also found a snake skin in the trunk.)

Now the question is, do we customize or restore? My curator’s heart says restore it to the original condition it was when it rolled out of the factory in Dearborn Michigan on July 14, 1964. A full restoration will be difficult and expensive. My husband is lobbying for customizing it, even if it only means upgrading the engine to the 289 with a four speed transmission.

Even considering the condition it is in, because of what it is, it’s likely worth more–as is–than the $225 we paid for it–not that we could have paid more for it. While, yes there is intrinsic value in it, it’s worth more in article work for my husband and when it’s done it will represent one of the few dreams of my life that has ever been fulfilled.

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