Saturday, October 07, 2006

Precious Metals

OK, so not everything we find here in California is gold but it's close. When my buddy in Fresno California said, "Just wait until you see what I have got for you." and I first laid my eyes on the empty little tub of a car I realized it was love at first site. What I saw was a shell of a 1965 Shelby GT350 that was literally stripped of everything. Besides the doors laying on the ground next to it and the missing front end, hood, trunk lid, ALL the interior, pedals, transmission, engine hood and everything else you can think of (including the paint) I began to look closer at the photos he sent and realized... This car doesn't even have a friggin piece of wire in it! When I began to price out all of the goodies, fasteners, wiring, switches, trim parts, light assembly's and everything else it started becoming apparent this was going to be cost prohibitive. Now it was time to begin looking for a donor car; a car that possibly was wrecked or in need of lots of love so I could pick it up for a song and then use the needed parts as I needed them.

After a few days of searching around the Internet it became clear that even a wrecked 1965 Mustang was not going to be cheap and it was all becoming a bit of a bummer as I continued to find myself making phone calls farther and farther out of my area code. But on a whim today I called my office manager and asked for the phone number of a wrecking yard we use from time to time. My thinking was that since he specializes primarily in Japanese cars he would surely not have a Mustang however he may just know of someone who has one. It was just before closing time and I was surprised that he even answered so late on a Saturday evening but I was even more surprised when he said, "Sure I have a 1965 Mustang and if you hurry I will hang around so you can come and check it out."

I didn't waste any time getting there and when I saw the poor little car and looked it over he began telling me, "Believe it or not it runs great and I think the 289 has just been rebuilt. My son was going to fix it up and drive it around but he just never got around to it. This car was a match made in Heaven for what I want it for and it has almost everything I need so we shook hands on it and it will be towed to my shop next week.

No comments: