My first love of something vintage happened at the tender age of fifteen. I was a girl who was dying to get her drivers license and dreaming of having her own car. I couldn’t wait to drive. I used to dream (literally) of driving a manual transmission because I wanted to learn to drive a stick-shift car so badly and none of our family’s cars had one. As a young kid, I would go on the bumper cars at amusement parks over and over because it was the closest thing I could get to driving. Once I got my learners permit, my mom was lucky if she got to drive at all when I was around!So when I became aware of classic cars, and in particular, classic Mustangs, I was an obsessed teenager…As if you didn’t already gather that from the first paragraph! I guess it could have been worse…I could have been hooked on drugs or something as equally unsavory. No, I dreamed and dreamed of driving a 1966 cherry red Mustang. As far as I’m concerned, that was Mustang’s best year for body style.
Finally, at the age of seventeen, my parents agreed to buy me a car after maintaining good grades in high school – talk about motivation! After a year and half of dreaming of that cherry red Mustang there was no convincing me that any other car in the world could possibly do. Well, maybe I would have been cool with a 1958 Corvette or some other incredible car, but then who wouldn’t if they could afford it.
When I think back to the day my parents took me to go look at a car, I feel a bit embarrassed remembering what a baby (some may say spoiled brat) I was being by all the sulking I did when my dad tried to take me to get a new Toyota Tercel. What ever happened to that car anyway? As the sales guy showed us around the lot (who I’m sure was acutely aware that he was not going to be making a sale to us that day), I pouted and stomped around until we finally left the lot to go look at the cherry red Mustang with a 289/V-8 that was for sale in the valley; a good 50 miles from our home. I know I should have been grateful to have parents that would or could buy me a car at all, but come on, a Toyota Tercel from the 80's?! Now, I’m not dogging Toyotas…I love my Toyota truck, but there’s no way a teenage girl with a Mustang obsession for a good two years (an eternity at that age) was going to settle for a Tercel; a car whose quickness (if you can even use that word in the same sentence) is highly impacted by one extra passenger. No, I wanted a car with a history. A car that would allow me to piss off the neighbors with a good peel out! Never mind that the car I wanted had a constant gas smell that no one could figure out where it was coming from. Never mind that it didn’t have power brakes or that it only had lap belts and the steering column had so much play that you could rock the wheel back and forth and still go straight. After reading that back now, it sounds like a regular death trap.
So after a day of looking at little tin cars (sorry Toyota), traveling all over Southern California, and a lot of sulking from me, my dad finally gave in and agreed to buy me the 1966 cherry red Mustang with a 289/V-8 engine for $3200.00. I was over the moon! Finally, after all that time, my love and I were together at last. And even though it wasn’t in perfect condition, it never failed to turn heads and get complements from folks who obviously appreciated a classic car. There’s just something magical about that car.
Twenty years later, I still have it and while it rarely gets driven anymore (the constant wonder of whether or not the car would get me where I needed to go once I started college gave way to me buying a “reliable” car), I cannot bear to part with it. I now dream of fixing it up to its beautiful, original condition some day when I’ve got a little cash to spare! Not sure when that day will be, but I know it will come and when it does my vintage love will once again shine!
