Three Builds, One Mustang, Vik Day Interview

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Episode Introduction

1:00Coming up today on this episode of Ford Mustang, the Early Years Podcast. Whatever car you're going to buy, see it first. Try to have, I mean, rust is the main thing. You know, they're kind of unavoidable. It's kind of unavoidable, but as little rust as possible, especially on the key parts, your frame rails, your cowls. Floors, there's relatively, you can find people to do it, but I wouldn't say any of that. And then really just identify, what I would actually say is don't discount how good a well-sorted original car drives.

1:33I bought another one in the process of this whole thing. It was a cherry Rangoon Red 65 Fastback from the guy that had restored it in 1984. And it was an original Houston car, DSO Houston car. And it was so unbelievably comfortable. And I think oftentimes that I should have breast-a-modded that because it's fundamentally a better car than mine was, or the white one is. But I just didn't have the heart to cut it up. I just felt like it needed to be original, remain the way that it was.

2:13Welcome to the Ford Mustang First Generation, the Early Years Podcast.

Podcast Overview

2:18Every week we will have conversations with collectors, experts, weekend warriors, and those in the know when it comes to first generation ponies. Start your engines and let's go. All right, today on Ford Mustang, the Early Years Podcast, we're going to dive into the journey of a lifelong Mustang dream centered on a 1965 Fastback that's evolved through multiple rebuilds, setbacks, and reinventions, of course, as we all have seen and done on our own. From the rough Craigslist purchase with questionable prior work to a budget-minded daily driver to a full-blown high-horsepower street and track build,

2:52this story captures the heart of Mustang ownership, his passion, persistence, and the emotional pull of a car that just won't let go. It's a testament to the imperfect, personal, and ever-evolving first-gen Mustang. I'm excited to chat. Vic Day, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Hey, and we discovered, I discovered, I guess, and then I just told you about it just a few minutes before I hit record. You know, we share an industry in common. You've been in it a lifelong time, and I've been in it for, you know, was in it for 30 years before I retired from the live events business.

3:26Man, oh man, when do you have, I know the live events business in the wedding world, when do you even have time to work on a Mustang or do anything Mustang related? Because that is a busy, busy world. It is. It's a very busy world. You just got to make the time, really. And yeah, it's almost the therapy after dealing with all the stress. Oh, hey, that's a really good place to start. Mustang is a therapy, and that is so true. You know, I remember, you know, just kind of being the workaholic guy that would spend all my time working and no time on hobbies. And then, you know, about eight years ago, I brought this Mustang into my world, and man, did it flip.

4:01I went through the whole, I'm going to learn how to do the stuff. I'm going to learn how to change power steering pumps. I'm going to learn how to even, you know, I didn't even know how to change a tire, basically, before I bought my car. And I've learned so much with that that's translated into so much more confidence in other areas of my life. I'd like to start just with the story of what you've done to your Mustang and maybe the origin story of when you even fell in love with the brand itself.

Mustang Ownership Story

4:28So you pick where you want to start. Okay, I, well, I've been a Mustang guy for pretty much my whole teenage life onwards. I wanted that to be my first car. I obsessed about it. I bought all the Mustang and Fast Forward and Muscle Mustang magazines at the bookstore. When I was a kid, I had my, I dream spec when I was like 12 years old and price it all out and all of that stuff. And I would bug all the hot rodders here in Houston when I was a kid that had Fox Body because that was the what I wanted originally was a Fox Body.

5:04But then I think I saw, I spent time with a 71 Fastback at a car show when I was like 11 years old and I just couldn't get away from that car. Right. And all the early ones just started really pulling to me. I almost convinced my dad to let me get a 70 Fastback 302 clone in high school. But then a lot of that didn't work. And he came to his senses. And then, yeah, then really it was just, I always loved him. And then when I started getting, you know, having the means to get into hobby cars and sports cars, for whatever reason, I never really bought one.

5:40I went the Japanese route and then I went and I got really into Porsches.

5:46And a buddy of mine through the Porsche Club is the one that he kind of pulled the trigger and went back to a, and got a 65 Mustang and completely hot rodded it out. And that sealed the deal for me. So I had to go and find one. All right. So tell me about the, how did you find one? What was the, what was the journey that you embarked upon to find your, your first Mustang? I was really looking for Fastback for sure. I wanted, at the time I did this, I started looking in 17 and then I bought it in 18. And at the time, the 67 and 68s were significantly more expensive than the 65 and 66.

6:19Right. And so I kind of just through budget narrowed in on those. The 69s and 70s, I'm a small guy and I just find them to be very big. And I also think they have the blind spots that I'd never get used to on those. So I just liked the 65 more. It's more comfortable for me to drive. And so I just looked and I, I love Craigslist. Um, I, I just go and do individual searches throughout the country to find stuff. And I happened to find this one in Denver and, uh, talk to the guy and, you know, seemed legit.

6:52I knew enough, you know, some of the things to look for and ask. Rust is the primary one and just made sure that it ran. And so, yeah, I, I, I bought it. All right. So, so if you've listened to the show for any length of time, you know, that everybody that has said they bought a, uh, a Mustang sight unseen or without going to see the car always turns into a whole different experience when you get to the car or the car arrives to you. So please tell me you went to see it before you plunked down any money on it. Oh, absolutely not. I did. I did FaceTime. I did FaceTime.

7:23Okay. Okay. So, no, I did not, I did not, I did a sight unseen. Um, so it, it arrived and it barely got off the trailer and, um, it was, it was something for sure. Okay. Well, so what did, what did the, in, in your estimation, what did you feel like the car condition was going to be coming to you? And what was the actual condition when you saw it roll off the trailer? Well, I specifically said, would you have any issues? I know it's winter now, but let's say in the spring or summer, you know, would you have

7:56any issues driving this long distance? Um, and he's like, the guy was like, no, I'm a BMW mechanic. Um, cause he was, and he's like, no, this is fine. It's safe. A couple of things that you need to do with that's it. And when I got it, it was in such bad shape. I mean, it was unsafe, um, to drive and the clutch was so jacked. You could barely even get it in gear. It was, it was just, it was just a mess. Well, maybe the guy was saying I'm a BMW mechanic. So I always carry my tools in my car so I can fix it. That's going to happen.

8:27All right. So, so you got this, this heap of a car. How was the body? Was the body in good shape? Was there any rust? Was he, was there anything that he was honest about in your estimation? Yeah, the rear, well, the rear panels, uh, he said that were replaced, but they were done like, like, it looks like Stevie Wonder had done the rear, the rear floor. And then for whatever reason, they didn't actually rivet it or even welded in there. They riveted the floor pans in there. So you could actually move it with your hands. Oh no. That was a, that was an issue. The frame rails were good.

8:58The front plans were great. Little holes in the, in the firewall. They had cut a hole to put the T5 in, which still don't understand why. They had done it. It was generally a redneck special. The door tag was gone. So I didn't, I knew it was the T code, but it had a tire 289 and a T5 in it. So to me, that was like, I was halfway to having a restomod. Um, okay. So, so the car comes off the trailer, uh, did it roll or did it not even roll? Could you roll it somewhere? I mean, could you roll it into your garage or on your driveway? It started, it was just impossible to, to not stall it because of how the clutch had

9:31been set up. And basically when we took it apart, we realized it had been installed incorrectly. Got it. So making contact with now, I know I, and again, it helped, help our listeners because advice, uh, from those that have been, um, burned is, is probably the best advice to, to receive and to hear when you, when you had the problems rolling off the trailer and you, and you started it and you realized it wouldn't even go into gear or had a challenge going into gear. Did you call the guy?

10:01Do you think it would have made sense for people that have the same experience to call the person if that's happening or like, I, even though you don't have any recourse at this point, I guess. So tell me your experience there. I did call him. Um, and I, you know, I was very frustrated and, and he kept trying to tell me that, you know, how he had modified the Z bar to work. And anyway, it was, it just, it was going nowhere. And finally he was like, listen, the money in the car is all worth in the body anyway. And I was like, that's not what you had anyway, but that's, that's where we ended up.

10:32So I took the risk and, you know, it, I will say one of the things, the way that it was is that it kind of spurned me to always know that I was going to go to mod it and make it my own. Right. Right. Okay. So, so you now have this car, it's not exactly what was promised or anything close to what it was promised and you embarked upon this next phase of your journey, which is I'm going to make these, uh, repairs or I'm going to resto mod it, or I'm going to do it. So tell me what you thought was priority number one, or maybe give me the list of the priorities

11:04when it came to, you know, doing these restoration. The main thing, priority number one was just getting this thing safe. Um, it was leaking from everywhere. It was scary to even take it out from a stoplight. It didn't stop.

11:20I mean, it was everything. It was, it was buying just a straight jalopy from one of those B movies. Okay. So brakes, steering, uh, transmission, right. Of course. Of course. All of that, uh, rebuilding the drums, all of that needed to be done. And so it was really just making it safe that, you know, I could drive it and really understand what I wanted to do with it. Okay. Uh, now you were new to Mustang at that point. What's, what's the stuff that you said, Hey, I'm going to take, tackle this on my own

11:50versus I'm going to take this to somebody that to, uh, to get, get this up to, up to speed. Or did you decide, I'm just going to do all this on my own without any knowledge of having to do this anyway? No, I had no knowledge. I'd never really worked on cars before. So I knew that knew what to do theoretically, but actually doing it was, was something I didn't want to tackle. So I found somebody, um, and I didn't vet them enough to do the initial, the initial work on it. So, okay. Let's, let's walk through that again. You're learning lessons every step of the way, the purchase and now the, now the repair.

12:22So let's, let's talk about that for a second. And, and, and Vic, I'm not saying any of this stuff to, to, to, for you to learn a valuable lesson here. I, I want to teach the people that are in our audience that are maybe dealing with the same crap that you had to deal with, how we get them to avoid the crap.

Restoration Process

12:39So you, you said you didn't vet the mechanic or how did you hear about them initially? Just through our, just through our group of friends, the guys that go to the racetrack and kind of our community. And, you know, I think for what I needed to do is I just needed it to, to be safe and reliable, something that I would actually want to enjoy because in its current state, the way that it was, it was just not, had I had gone to look at that car, I would not have bought it. So that's number one. If you can go look at the car, have somebody go look at it. Yep. Yeah. But from there, just, you know, getting it safe.

13:12I, there was just some personal issues with the mechanic really, but, um, the car was safe and it, and it worked, um, and, and that, and it had a lot of fun with it in its state, but again, so he, he got it up to, he got it up to safety then. I mean, you, you felt comfortable after he did the work on it, but very similar to a lot of, uh, solopreneurs that are out there as mechanics, sometimes a personal issue, a divorce, a health setback, any of that can completely wreck a, uh, the, the process that you're going through a, uh, 30 day repair, it could turn into a six month process.

13:46And I, I know that that's happened in many people in our community's lives too. Yes. It's, it's hard. And those, it's hard to find people that are going to adhere to like the timeline that you're going to, that you want to work. You think that it should get done in. And then oftentimes, again, if you're in our community listening to this, the people that you can rely upon, it may be outside of your budget because they're, they're pros and they're in the shop. Um, did you rely upon YouTube for anything at all? Did you, did you look at any self, you know, DIY stuff, or did you just say, I'm just not going to do any of this on my own? No, I ended up really learning a lot through, cause that was the thing I got to ask a lot

14:19of questions that I really got to understand and learn how a lot of this stuff worked. Um, and so yeah, YouTube was an invaluable help. I would find myself at all hours of the night, just going into rabbit holes of how to fix. You know, what it takes to rebuild the steering box and how to, you know, adjust all the little quirky things that are all over on Mustangs to, to get to work. I think I've spent hours upon hours trying to figure out timing and optimizing timing with different curves in the, in the distributor or whatever. So, okay. All right. So you, so you got to the point where it was safe enough to drive and now you're kind of

14:52tinkering with it and you, you get to a, another phase of your restoration where you're going to start doing things like, uh, I think, did you put, uh, electron fuel injection into, into one of the Mustangs? Yeah, that was the second version of the build over COVID. Um, but yes, I, I, I'm still running, uh, EFI. All right. So take our, take our community through, through the, what, were there any mental gymnastics in, do I keep this thing pure? Do I, do I put the, I mean, it sounds like from the very beginning, you knew that you were

15:23going to be modifying the, the, the Mustang? Yeah. I mean, the thing is I had always wanted a modded Mustang. And, and so that was one of the reasons that this was attractive is that it already had the T5. It already had it. It was originally a T code. So I got a pretty good deal on it and I didn't have any of the, the, the regret of, you know, cutting up a nice car or anything like that. Cause it was already kind of a, you know, a mechanic special to, to begin with. And so basically after I got the car safe and enjoyed it for, for a while, I had, you know,

15:55my son was born and had a lot of fun with it, COVID hit. And then the thing is that the 289 that was in there never really made proper oil pressure. So no matter what, what happened, I could never get, and it was, you know, we just tired. The bearings were shot. It just needed to be rebuilt or a new engine needed to be put in there. And at the time I didn't have the budget to do anything drastic and rebuilds are really expensive. They were looking at four or 5,000 for a rebuild. Right. Then I found, you know, blueprint motors on summit had that 302 roller cam for 1799.

16:25And so I was just like, all right, let's, let's do it this way. And did you do all the, you do all the install on your own or did you, did you take that to a shop? Yeah. So a buddy of mine has a, has a hot rod shop in Vegas and, and he was opening a second location and moving his family back to Houston. So over COVID and he was, he had a Mustang in high school that I, that we all lusted after. And so he's a guy and he, he said, you know, it was COVID. And so he was like, yeah, let's, I'll take the project on. So it was, it was also great to work with him to source the parts and think through

16:58what we wanted to do. And, and yeah, so over COVID, that was the project. All right. So the 302, the 289 comes out, the three, did you, did you save the 289 or did you, did you scrap it? Scrapped it. Scrapped it. Okay. So you got people, you got people yelling at the speakers right now. What do you mean you scrapped it? They could have rebuilt it. You know, they probably, you probably, there probably was a market for, I don't know if it needed to be, if the heads needed to be redone, if the, if, if the pistons were shot, I don't know what the problem was and I wouldn't even know if I saw it, but a lot of times those

17:28things are valuable even as a, even as dead weight. Yeah. At the time it was just, like I said, I didn't, we didn't, we were looking to see how much they were worth. And I thought we sold it for what, at the time, 2020, what kind of old shot Windsor V8s were bringing. All right. So the 302 goes in and how long did that engine last you? That engine was great. I mean, it was, it was a very stout motor. I really loved it, but it was always making a weird noise and it wasn't consistent. At one point we thought it was a wrist pin issue. Um, and it lasted me mileage only lasted been like 5,000 miles because I, in 23, September

18:0723, um, I was driving and all of a sudden I just started rattling like crazy coming and I couldn't tell if it was a broken rod or, and I'm multiple engine guys were stumped as to what it was. And I had one mechanic who immediately was like, this is, you have a bottom end and it turned out to be, uh, main crank bearings, multiple failures on that. Wow. Wow. Now was that, how long are they warrantied for? They were, they were doing a three-year warranty on the one that I had bought. Okay. So were you within the warranty period and able to have them make the repair?

18:40Yeah, it was, uh, initially the, the reason was that I initially started the warranty period when I started first noticing the noise and they were assisting me with different fixes or whatever. And then I had some personal stuff and I, I didn't really drive the car, but then when it actually had failure because I'd initiated that warranty claim way back when they honored the time. Ah, nice. Okay, cool. So the 302 comes out or did they, uh, did they repair it? Well, I had to take it out and then it took them a long time to, it took, I think six months

19:10to determine that it was, that they were going to replace. They didn't admit, admit fault, but they said that a courtesy that they would rebuild it for me, but I had already kind of moved on to what I, what, where I'm at now. Okay. So what was the next step? So it sounds like the 302 came out. It's in, it was in, uh, in the shop for six months, but in the meantime, were you making other decisions and plans with the Mustang? I was, and I was really trying to think, do I really want to put this engine back in? I was always going to be in the back of my mind that it could very easily go, go wrong again. Right. At this point, I was really just thinking, like, what am I, what, what does the ultimate

19:43goal with this car? And my friend had already built basically the car I wanted. And he is, he's, he's a tremendous, uh, track guy. And, and, um, he built a 66 half Shelby, um, street, street and track monster. And my, I basically was like, that's what I want. I don't know if I need to go as extreme as him. I don't track, you know, anywhere near what he does. And, and I, and I still had other uses for the car. I have, like, I still wanted to be comfortable around town. And I might need to put a car seat in there for my son.

20:14All right. So what did you put in it after the three Oh two was gone? I put a Ford racing three 63. Okay. Epped fuel injection. I had a FBA headers put in, I've had full street or track, um, front front end and brakes put in a TKX transmission. Um, and then stiffened, did a lot of chassis stiffening with a welded in cage and, uh, and Oh my gosh. Yeah. So did you, did you weld the, uh, the car seat into the car? Cause that's about the only way that car seat was going to fit in the back seat.

20:44It actually fits pretty well. Yeah. I spent a lot of time trying to source a seat that'll fit properly in there and it's worked. Well, you, and you probably two or three X the horsepower by putting that, uh, the Ford racing three 63 in it. Didn't you? Yeah. Mechanically, everything is the same as my buddies and he dinos at around like four 80, four 90 at the wheels. So I'm hoping it's going to make about that same power. All right. Incredible. So it's that when you say I'm hoping, does that mean that, is that where you are with it right now? Are you in the process of upgrading to this, uh, three 63 and doing all the mods or has

21:16it been done? It's done. Um, it's done and I've been ripping it around town. Um, still hoping to take it to the, I was going to take it on a vintage, uh, car rally called the Teos Turismo down here in Houston. But, uh, one of the U joints failed the night before the rally. So I didn't want to risk it being out in the middle of West Texas and having an issue with that. And did you say what year is your car? It's a 65. So, so you have a 65 fastback with that, with that Ford racing engine and it, it probably looks like a, uh, a wolf in sheep's clothing because those 65s and 66, they look a little

21:51timid. They don't quite look as beefy and, and, and muscular as the, uh, 67 and 68, but man, it probably looks great and sounds even better. Yeah. It's meant to be a complete sleeper. So the only way that anyone can know that anything's done is you can kind of see the studs from the, from the, the brakes, um, or the roll bar that's, that's in the car, but everything else is a complete sleeper. Anytime you see a five point harness in a car, you know, it's gotta be great.

22:22So you, do you take it to the track at all? Or do you, do you really just, that's the plan? It's been, yeah, I, uh, the plan, the way it's been built is it for, to, to go road racing. That, that is great. I would love to share with our community some, uh, some photos of it. So before we, uh, before we have this thing air in the next week or so, I'd love to get a couple of photos so I can use it as a cover art as well. Sure thing. Sure thing. So, uh, how about body work? I know you were having trouble with the floor pans and all of that. Did you take care of all that or is it where, where it ride, it rode before? Yeah, no, the, once we were doing the cage, we welded the cage into the spring purges and

22:55then also redid the rear floor pans and, and make that all structured. And that's at the same time with the subframe connectors and. All right. And what's the plan moving forward? It sounds like you're a, you're a guy that is never satisfied with exactly where it is right now. So, uh, while it could be extremely, as someone could, would be extremely happy with where it is. I know I have a feeling you want other stuff to get done to the car. Yeah. I hadn't touched the rear end. Uh, I was running Coney's from that version too. When I had the, the, the three or two in there and, um, but they were the cheap street Coney's

23:27and I found that there was kind of bottoming out and giving me a really floaty ride. So I just bought the Bilstein's from street or chart for the rear. I'm still keeping four and a half mid-eye Leafs. Um, and then that has made a tremendous difference and just how the rear, uh, grips and also how much, how much more comfortable it is around town with our really horrible streets we have down here. Curious what you did with the, uh, maybe you mentioned this and I just missed it. Did you do something with the braking system? Um, it's still front discs, rear drums. Um, but the front disc, I, uh, I did the street or track, uh, they have this break.

24:01It's the, it's the NASCAR brakes, but these are aluminum because I'm not doing C-VAR or vintage racing. Um, but they're the largest brakes that'll fit on 15 inch wheels. So I did go, uh, 15 inch torched thursdays with the 235 Toyo R888s. So some really aggressive tires on there too. Yeah. And I know the, uh, Houston summers can get a little bit sweltering, any AC in that or are you putting... Absolutely. That was a must. I was initially, I was going to keep the original York compressor and with R12, which is what it had. Right. And it worked really well, but when we were getting, when we were building it, we, my

24:35mechanic that did it was, he's like, you have about 80 pounds on your nose right now if you keep that York. So we just, since everything had already been updated, we went to a, to, to modern sand and compressor and we're running 134, but we're using the same original 65, um, AC unit, under dash AC unit. That is very cool. Very cool. So for those that are in our community, if you are, uh, if you live in a, in a climate that is, that is hot and you don't have AC in your car already, and it didn't come with AC, uh, you know, I did the, uh, vintage AC upgrade on my, uh, on my, um, 67 F two 50 and I, and

25:11I spent about 30 hours putting that thing into my, into my truck. I love it. Uh, but you can do the same with your Mustang and, and they have them so that it actually looks very close to what the factory air looked like or, or very, very close. And, and you have a nice cool summer. And that is, uh, something I know we're in the middle of winter when we're recording this right now, but I think you guys in Houston are about to get a whole mess of either. I don't know if you're getting snow in Houston or if you're getting ice, what are you getting to you? It's ice right now. The whole city is preparing to shut down over the weekend. Oh, geez. Yeah.

25:41So any other advice that you can share with those in our community that are thinking about purchasing a Mustang, have gotten one and looking to do a resto mod, like, like you have done maybe some valuable lessons that you've learned along the way. I think we've shared, go see the car. We've already shared that one. Yeah. Whatever, whatever car you're going to buy, uh, see it first. Um, try to have, I mean, rust is the main thing, you know, they're kind of unavoidable. It's, it's kind of unavoidable, but as little rust as possible, especially on the key, key parts, your frame rails, your cowls, floors is relatively, you can find people to do it,

26:14but I wouldn't say any of that. And then really just identify what I would actually say is don't discount how good a well-sorted original car drives. I had, I bought another one in the process of this whole thing. It was, it was a cherry Rangoon red 65 fastback from the guy that restored it in 1984. And it was an original Houston car, DSO Houston car. And it was so unbelievably comfortable. And I think oftentimes that I should have breast-a-modded that because it's fundamentally

26:45a better car than mine was or the white one is, but I just didn't have the heart to cut it up. I just felt like it needed to be. Right. Original. Remain to remain the way that it was. So do you have that still, or did you? No, I sold it. I sold it. Oh my gosh. So that's the one, it's the one that either got away or the one that you made a lot of money on, because I know that the pricing of fastbacks over the last 10 years has gone through the roof. So I'm hoping you made a couple of dollars on that sale. I did all right. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. So let's talk about valuation for a second.

Valuation Discussion

27:17Then we'll talk about community and then we'll wrap up. So valuation, as I just mentioned, the fastbacks, it's crazy how expensive they have been. Now in the last year or so, prices have come down a little bit, but they're still, I mean, it's hard to find more than a shell for less than 25 grand, you know, and, and if you're finding one that's in any decent shape, you're going to spend 45 to $60,000 for, for the car. And that's, you know, that's not even including anything that you want to do with it when it, when it gets to you, like what's your thought about valuation of these fastbacks?

27:49Well, I mean, in my case, this is a, was a bitter pill to swallow. I, I foolishly kept an Excel sheet when I decided to do this version. Yeah. I hear you. So, you know, there was no lying to myself on what exactly this thing is, is taking. It's, and it's, I don't think I would, if I was to sell it, I don't think I would get what I'm in it for. Right. Um, you know, but I'm, but when I, when I'm looking at some of the stuff, I'm bringing a trailer, there's some, been some pretty close bills to what I've been doing. You know, the main thing is, is if you do the work yourself, cause that's labor is really

28:22the most expensive component of all, uh, now and, and also knowledge because it's almost become like a dying art for people who really know how to do this stuff properly. Um, so yeah, I think the valuations are high, but I also don't think, see how, see how they're going to go lower because so many of these, they didn't make that many to begin with. And so many of them are just been trashed. So there's not a whole lot to choose from. Right. So, so the ones that I, I mean, unless you're going to take a guy that's put, you know, 75 grand into a $20,000 purchase and sell it for $40,000 and lose 50 grand on it.

28:57It's kind of like Harley motorcycles, you know, the guys that are, and I was a Harley rider myself and I, and I know that you can easily spend double what the bike costs in Chrome and with any kind of, uh, modifications that you're making to, to first gen Mustangs. You can easily, especially if you're using a shop, you can easily take a $25,000, uh, shell of a purchase and turn it into a 60 or $70,000, um, you know, rebuild. And it's hard to get that out. So you're either going to hold onto the car for an extensive period of time and enjoy it.

29:30Cause isn't that the reason why we bought these cars to begin with? Most people did not buy them to flip them. Um, or you just say, Hey, I'm going to have to sell this one at a loss. And then what's the point of selling it? If you're going to sell it at a loss. Exactly. Yeah. And you see, you know, if you're going to hot rod it and do it to the level that, you know, a lot of people do, and that could be aesthetically, mine is not aesthetically nice. It's, you know, being beat up and got stings and got stings. It has stings. And, uh, and I want it that way because I don't want to, I want to use it and it's, you know, it's, it's a tool and, you know, you look, you know, Steve Ray Vaughn's number

30:02one guitar is, is beat to hell. And that's kind of, yeah. Yeah. If you've ever seen Stevie SRV's, uh, uh, uh, YouTube videos, you're looking at the guitar and it is like falling apart on stage, but that's the one he loves. And, you know, it's interesting you say that because a lot of people do put so much pride into the pristine, you know, you can get within a foot and you're looking at it and it's like, holy crap, this thing looks really great. I mean, mine's a really good five to 10 footer. When you get really close, you're like starting to notice little tiny scratches or like, but

30:34I don't want to have to worry about it. If I'm going to park it in a, you know, in a parking lot or take it to the gas station that somebody while I'm inside is going to, you know, key it or work. So it's like, I don't want to have to worry about anything. And my Mustang is even a little bit more pristine than the, than the three F series trucks that I have, which are, I keep them on the street. I don't care if somebody throws their door into it. I mean, it actually will build the character of the, uh, of the vehicle itself, but it is fun to be able to, to get something up to speed. But I love the wolf in sheep's clothing analogy. Cause that's, it sounds like that's what you got under that hood and, and, you know, in

31:07the car itself. Yeah. I was at the Ferrari museum last summer and it was interesting. The car that caught my eye the most was this Le Mans winner from the seventies and it's just beat to shit. I mean, the entire front end is just road rash to hell. The paint's chipping everywhere. And that car, I just kept coming back to it. It just looked so amazing. And part of it was just that it was used, right? Exactly how it was meant to be used. Well, the pristine nature of, uh, of bullet, uh, you know, was, uh, it wasn't there.

31:38I mean, I talked to, uh, to, to Sean, the guy that, uh, that, that got it from his dad and the car, which sold for three something million dollars. Uh, it looked pretty rough. I mean, it's pretty rough looking around, around the edges. So it doesn't, it doesn't need to be a $25,000 paint job in order for it to actually be a, and you know what, it's whatever you want it to be. If you're looking for, uh, a cherry car and it looks perfect, then that's what you're proud of. And, you know, you take a rag out there every time a piece of dust falls and that's what

32:08you want to do. So I don't want to do that because I don't want to have to worry about it every time I, I go, go somewhere that I'm going to get some road rash or I'm going to pull too close to a curb and scratch the, uh, you know, the wheel or anything like that. But there are people that, that do like that. It sounds like you're not that kind of guy. I'm not that kind of guy, but I've had plenty of people on the show that, that very, very careful about every component of that car. And they would never put anything other than, you know, an OEM part into the, uh, under the hood. Yeah. Yeah. So before we wrap, tell me about, uh, your involvement in the community.

32:41Do you do anything in, you know, a member of any clubs? Do you go to any events? Any, yeah. I, in the Mustang community here is, it's at least the ones that I've been are a lot of the newer Mustangs, which I think it's not really anything I'm really can relate to or into. Right. Uh, but I am, I, I'm also, like I said, originally a Porsche guy. So I'm very involved with the local Porsche chapter and there's actually quite a lot of Mustang guys in that too. So it's an interesting, uh, overlap there. Yeah. Good communities. I mean, I think that there is, um, I don't know the Porsche community.

33:14There, there is a Porsche club that meets in Miami, I live in a small town called Ojai in, in Southern California. And it's great to be able to watch the Porsches go down the route 33, which was one, I think, um, Haggerty's road of the year, a couple of years ago. So it's great to see all of these cars that are speeding their way up the highway. And then, uh, once a month we do a, uh, a cars and coffee and there's a bunch of Mustangs that are there. There's some old Porsches too, but I honestly, I feel like those that are in any car community, you know what, they, they love what they love and it makes for great conversation and they

33:47have a good time talking about it. And it sounds like you do the same. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. Well, Vic, I really do appreciate you sharing your, uh, your story. I know you're, you're buckling down for a, uh, for a pretty hearty weekend of, uh, of ice and snow as all of my friends on the East coast are. I don't know what you're talking about though. It's 68 degrees and sunny here in Southern California, but we'll get an earthquake and you guys will get, uh, you know, six inches of snow in Houston, which will shut Houston down for, uh, for a month probably. Right. Well, I hope that there are, uh, that their weddings are still continuing on even the, uh, even

34:19in the icy times. I know that everybody that has a wedding planned in Houston this weekend probably thought, well, we'll never get ice or snow. So, cause it never happens in Houston. So I'm hoping that everything goes smoothly for you this weekend. Thanks. Thank you. Hey, for all of us, all of you guys in our, in our community, keep it safe, keep it rolling and keep it on the road. Thanks for tuning in another week. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Ford Mustang first generation, the early years podcast, please subscribe rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts ideas for the show.

34:51Click the link in the show notes. Thanks again for tuning in.