“We're burning down the highway skyline
On the back of a hurricane that started turning
When you were young”
(It’s a wall of words below so if you want a TL; DR- I’m now the re-owner of my first car, a 1991 GT that was the car that made me love cars. )
Not sure how much of this will be a real project, but thought some folks might find this interesting and writing stuff down can keep me accountable.
I just became owner, again, of a 1991 Mustang GT. This car has a long history with my family and it’s the foundation of my relationship with my father.
My dad is the 3rd owner of the car, he bought it in November of 1996. I spent a year going to dealerships with him hunting for a Mustang before we found this car.
(Circa 1996)
He owned it from 96-2002 (44k miles to 89k miles) when I bought it the first time. During his ownership we bonded over doing basic bolt ons and driving it to cruise ins. It was the only “cool” car in the family and got me hooked as a car guy.
I bought it as my first car in 2002 and owned it until 2017.
During that time it was my DD for about a year, but then put away for occasional use. I managed to keep it in decent shape and did some mods; 5-lug, explorer heads/intake, 5-lug conversion and a manual swap.
Being busy (and broke) with college and starting a family meant I didn’t have much time or money for the car. It sat for years at a time, with the longest stretch being when the AOD failed and it didn’t move for 4 years. I collected a bunch of parts for it, but they remained uninstalled as I kind of fell out of love with it. I ended up in a situation where I needed the money to facilitate a move and I sold the car to my brother in 2017 (89k miles to 95k miles)
My brother bought it and set to cleaning it and installing a bunch of the parts I hoarded. He also added his own mark on it with some mods and kept it clean and inside.
I’ve gotten in a better position since I sold it and decided I wanted to find a long term Radwood car to keep as a toy. I bounced around with cheap Hondas (a challenge integra and an EK hatch) while mulling what to settle with. I’ve stayed a fan of foxes, but If you’ve followed fox body prices you know that they’ve skyrocketed during the time since I sold mine so I wrote off owning another.
My brother contacted me and let me know that due to a relocation he was considering parting with the car. We agreed on a family discounted price and I got the car back.
So fast forward to today and what I’m documenting here.
My brother had the car from 2017-2023 (95k to 97k miles). The car spent the last 2 years stored in a warehouse.
I have a high level overview of what work he completed, but he doesn’t recall all of it.
My plan is:
Clean it
- Document mods and recent maintenance
- Drive it as much as possible
- Refresh the worn items and keep it nice - it’s a car that’s finally worth a semi restoration
- Upgrade brakes