Just a few houses down from the house with the very eclectic driveway, which included an Audi V8, is this one, that clearly favors the Blue Oval brand. At least there’s some diversity within that fine family of Ford cars. And that’s not the full extent of the collection; there’s another hiding in the garage next to the Mark VIII. Want to guess? It wouldn’t be hard…
There it is…an original Mustang, largely disassembled. And how long has it been in that state?
Which reminded me of this driveway shot I took just a couple of weeks earlier. How many Mustangs are still awaiting their resurrection? It must be a substantial number.
It’s sad to see an original Mustang in rough shape, but they’ll likely serve as donor cars to help another Mustang (like the one in the garage) live again.
There’s an early ’70s ‘stang in similar condition in the small town near where I live. Progress is being made, but at a similar glacial pace to my Volkswagen projects.
OTOH, a nice-looking ’65 notch is for sale at a lot in a somewhat larger town a half hour from me. Tempting…
Send the pics of the Mustangs over to Cars in Barns because they will never be worked on from the looks of it. Why people do this is one of the great mysteries of life.
On the other hand there was an old curmudgeon in my Cougar Club years ago who has since passed away. One of my club members who spotted his Cougars in the 80’s made friends with him and brought him into our Club when formed in the 90’s. The old fellow asked him to store two Cougars for him which he did. When he passed away he was left with those Cougars. One a 1968 427 GTE and the other a 1968 428 4spd. Both a grade 4+ and both running.
It’s interesting that first generation mustang notchback’s are such an iconic car and still so low in value. Craigslist is full of ’65/66 mustangs like those in that condition in the 1500-3000 pricerange. They made a LOT of them and they were saved from the crusher in higher numbers than typical cars, so now there are still many unrestored cars and parts cars out there, driving the value down. Now you take a fastback mustang–that is an entirely different story in terms of value–through the roof, pun intended…
One other factor keeping so many mustangs in an unrestored state is that, like all falcon decendents, they have a unique cowl design that traps water, leaves, etc and rusts from the inside, eventually eating out the bottom of the cowl and the front of the floor. This is expensive/difficult to fix and is pretty well invisible to the untrained eye.
The number of Mustangs in that condition around the US must be in the thousands. I come across lots of them on the local Craigslist and those are just the ones that someone has either came to the realization that they are not going to put it back together, the person died, or they are moving and can’t take it with them.
It is really sad because many say they drove in and many do look like they drove into the garage before the person took it all apart or sanded all of the paint off of it to let it rust.
They usually discover a restoration is beyond their skillset or their wallet and what looked easy on TV just isnt going to happen.
Yes, they don’t realize it could take 1000 hours. On top of it they really have no skills body wise, paint wise, and maybe even mechanically wise. Without those skills the dollars add up very fast when paying another. Restoration is not for the faint of heart nor for those who can’t formulate a basic plan of attack and demonstrate the needed attention to detail required. There are many “restored” cars on Craigslist that make me , and I’m sure some here, go what the heck?
Or in my case, life just gets in the way, and working on the car simply keeps getting bumped lower on the list. I keep telling myself things *will* slow down, eventually.
I got lucky I had a while of total unemployment due to full time child care and did the entire job myself strip down to a shell welding repaint reassembly etc still not finished but roadworthy registered and regularly driven now, My Minx will likely never get finished but I dont care it keeps me occupied and it keeps improving,power front disc brakes and automatic adjusting rears are next all out of the Rootes parts catalogue, have to wreck another car for parts to get em thats all.
Sadly, “awaiting their resurrection” = “meeting their demise”
Curious that the Mark is under cover and the Falcon is not. I love the Mark VIII, but I think I’d want the 30 year older convertible under the roof. Maybe it needs some assistance from the healing rains?
I can sympathize with the plight of the unfinished restoration, as I have a never-started one myself. First I had neither the time nor the money nor any space…then I had the space but not the time or the money…then I had the time and eventually the money but no space again. Someday, someday.