Ponyman66
Yak, yak, yak
I only have one pic scanned right now, hopefully I can throw mine in. It's my very first Mustang. I bought it in 1979 for a whopping $800! There was a little rust in the right front floor pan and the bottoms of both quarters. It was painted Wimbledon White with Guardsman Blue Shelby stripes. The thing was , it's a 200ci six banger with a paper three speed! Each weekend when we'd go cruise our local hangouts everyone would want to race the "Shelby". I'd have to tell them, "come on, gimme a break its a six cylinder!". I slowly fixed it up and tried to keep everything stock...even as a teenager. When my wife I started dating I taught her how to drive a manual tranny. Thank goodness I had started working at one of the local Ford dealers as a mechanic by then (specializing in manual trans and diffs). It was also a godsend that Falcon trans were plentiful then. I can't RECALL the number of times I had to rebuild that thing due to the wife downshifting into first with the car still going. I finally got tired of doing that and swapped in a '67 full synchro'd three speed (the only thing I modified on the car).
After joining the military I finally had enough spare cash to have my father do some major work on the car for me. He replaced both quarters and fixed the floor. He then sprayed it in the original Poppy Red it was supposed to be. No more dealing with folks wanting to match up against a Shelby! The picture is during the week I picked it up from home (July 1984). I was attending tech school in Elizabeth City, NC at the time and the photo was shot outside one of the repair hangars on base. The following month my dad passed on a lead to another fastback. It belonged to the brother of a guy that my dad was painting his car (an original owner '66 coupe). The way the car was described made it sound like a real Shelby. I took a road trip to Timmonsville, SC and discovered it was actually a factory '66 GT fastback. Since I didn't want to be the guy that say's "I coulda had a V8!", I arranged for a signature loan and bought the GT in Aug, 84 (and still have it to this day!). I transferred the insurance to it and back home the six banger '65 fastback went.
After graduating I was transferred to Corpus Christi, Tx. I drove the '66 down while the '65 stayed at my parent's house here in SC. The wife (fiance at the time), followed me down and we were married. She'd alternate between driving my '66 to work, or her '78 Zephyr (six banger, three on the floor!). One day a guy followed her into her parking lot and asked if she'd sell the car (my '66). She told him that I wouldn't do it, but that I had another fastback I'd sell (she was SO helpful! :sarc). Turns out the guy had a teenage son that worked at a grocery store near our house. He had a really nice '66 coupe I'd see all the time in the store parking lot, but then disappeared. Turns out the kid totaled it and dad was trying to help him find another. Who sees red flags and warning signs at this point..... I didn't! He called and we negotiated a price for my '65. My younger brother then agreed to trailer it down from SC during a visit. The deal was done! I then started seeing my old '65 in the grocery store parking lot everyday. At least I could keep tabs on it. I don't recall when it was, but I found out the kid and his dad had stripped out all of the V8 drivetrain and suspension from his totaled '66 coupe and swapped it into the '65. After seeing the car everyday for months and months, it too disappeared. If you didn't figure it out, yep, the damn kid totaled it out too. I wish he'd been a Camaro fan instead! If you ever ran across a totaled out (EARLY production! Sept, 64), Poppy Red six banger fastback in the Corpus Christi area, that's my first pony! I wish I'd never sold it...but at least I've held on to the GT!!
Here's the pic I have scanned (I hadn't gotten the emblems or rocker moldings back on it):
After joining the military I finally had enough spare cash to have my father do some major work on the car for me. He replaced both quarters and fixed the floor. He then sprayed it in the original Poppy Red it was supposed to be. No more dealing with folks wanting to match up against a Shelby! The picture is during the week I picked it up from home (July 1984). I was attending tech school in Elizabeth City, NC at the time and the photo was shot outside one of the repair hangars on base. The following month my dad passed on a lead to another fastback. It belonged to the brother of a guy that my dad was painting his car (an original owner '66 coupe). The way the car was described made it sound like a real Shelby. I took a road trip to Timmonsville, SC and discovered it was actually a factory '66 GT fastback. Since I didn't want to be the guy that say's "I coulda had a V8!", I arranged for a signature loan and bought the GT in Aug, 84 (and still have it to this day!). I transferred the insurance to it and back home the six banger '65 fastback went.
After graduating I was transferred to Corpus Christi, Tx. I drove the '66 down while the '65 stayed at my parent's house here in SC. The wife (fiance at the time), followed me down and we were married. She'd alternate between driving my '66 to work, or her '78 Zephyr (six banger, three on the floor!). One day a guy followed her into her parking lot and asked if she'd sell the car (my '66). She told him that I wouldn't do it, but that I had another fastback I'd sell (she was SO helpful! :sarc). Turns out the guy had a teenage son that worked at a grocery store near our house. He had a really nice '66 coupe I'd see all the time in the store parking lot, but then disappeared. Turns out the kid totaled it and dad was trying to help him find another. Who sees red flags and warning signs at this point..... I didn't! He called and we negotiated a price for my '65. My younger brother then agreed to trailer it down from SC during a visit. The deal was done! I then started seeing my old '65 in the grocery store parking lot everyday. At least I could keep tabs on it. I don't recall when it was, but I found out the kid and his dad had stripped out all of the V8 drivetrain and suspension from his totaled '66 coupe and swapped it into the '65. After seeing the car everyday for months and months, it too disappeared. If you didn't figure it out, yep, the damn kid totaled it out too. I wish he'd been a Camaro fan instead! If you ever ran across a totaled out (EARLY production! Sept, 64), Poppy Red six banger fastback in the Corpus Christi area, that's my first pony! I wish I'd never sold it...but at least I've held on to the GT!!
Here's the pic I have scanned (I hadn't gotten the emblems or rocker moldings back on it):
