Rob, Niel, Tim and Mosesatm Thank you to each of you for your input! After very little thought I have decided to restore the car! I will take my time, I have a rotisserie at my disposal and the space to use it. So I am going to do a complete restoration to this little bit of history!
As I stated in my first post, I did have my heart broke earlier in my Mustang years. When I was 15, my father had a yellow 1965 coup, I loved that car, and of course this is the car I wanted for my first car! Still at 15, while walking down 1st street & Newhope in Santa Ana Calif. I saw a primer gray Fastback Mustang sitting on this guys property some what behind his house, you would never see it, if you were driving by. I got up close and sneaked a peak at it, looked like it was all there. It did not, have a for sale sign on it, but I knocked on the guys door and unfortunately he wasn't home. I came back the next day and tried again, and again no answer. Remember I'm 15 and unfortunately this guys house was several miles away from our house. A week went by and I headed over to the house, and this time I caught him in the drive way, I asked about the 1965 Fastback and was met with an abrupt "under no circumstances was that car for sale!!" My heart was broke. You see I had already put the car back together and was driving it around town, painted it yellow like my dads coup and going to the beach with it! (all in my head of course) but 15 what an age! Well a few months went by, I was walking down 1st street again, and saw the old gentlemen out in his garage, Fastback still out back ... I stopped to say hello, he replied with, do you still want that Mustang? Of course I jumped out of my skin while trying to mutter the words yessss... the old man explained to my father and I, that the car belong to his son who was killed in Vietnam! My dad bought the fastback for $1000.00 this was in 1977..I worked day and night on the 65 fastback putting it back together..I worked on the Fastback so much I was put on restriction from it for a week! My father said that when I had the car put back together, he would help me rebuild the motor. I had the car put back together with in 5 months. I was now 16 and unfortunately my father had past away from a massive heart-attack! just two months earlier, prior to my 16th birthday..I did get the Fastback running with the help of friends and family.. I was 17 when it happened! I drove the Fastback to my girl friends house as I had 100 times before. It was dusk, time for dinner, we took her car, as it was a newer Honda and not the 65.. The Mustang sat in front of her house as it had 100 times before. After Dinner, we headed home, as we turned down her street we could tell that there were cops and something big going on down by her house.. Well when we got there, we saw my 1965 Mustang Fastback sitting completely destroyed in the middle of the road! Destroyed, by a drunk Driver!
Oh did I mention that it was a SHELBY GT 350!!! Albeit I didn't know it at the time we bought it.....
True Story
Scotti