I am working on a new look for the blog – so you will see changes here and there as I find a theme that I am comfortable with. I am customizing the base theme to form one that I like and it will take a bit of time as I learn the inner workings of the theme and Word Press.

Cheers!

Today was SWAP MEET DAY. I was originally slated to go with my brother-in-law and one or two of his sons but that didn’t work out. I went by myself and that was definitely a pleasure :-). I haven’t walked the swap meet by myself ever and being alone let me set my own pace, backtrack, people-watch, and absorb the historic and junky splendor of it all. I wouldn’t say that this would be an American Picker’s dream – everyone here is a picker and a plucker and they have a good idea of what they have, but just about anything that you want or think you need could be found here if you look close enough.

I had two missions today – to get insight into what I would want to do with my Uncle’s Mustang and to see if I could find a cutting torch, some good air tools and an air compressor cheap. I saw what I thought was a good Snap-On torque wrench but it was broke but still  the guy wanted $60 for it.

No good air compressors, some other good tools but none to spend good money on, and no cutting torch for less than $200!!! I mean – really?

So on to the car show. The minute I walked on to the racetrack I saw the Mustangs. I was remiss in getting the names of the owners of these cars – but if you are the owner, writer me. I will give you credit, for sure – these care are awesome.

The first one I saw was a ’66 restoration that appeared to be the same color as my Uncle’s. Check it out:

It’s got the Magnum Wheels, too. I am thinking about using those in the restoration I am doing, although it was equipped with steel wheels and hubcaps from the facory. Here is another with the wire hubcaps along with a pic of the engine – maybe what my Uncle’s should look like?

An then there was my ongoing search for my Dad’s ’48 Plymouth Coupe or ’65 Pontiac Catalina. No ’48 Coupe – but here was an interesting car for sale –

1938 Desoto – But back to the Mustangs – oh, wait, here, look at this one!

It had a NYC Taxi Medallion from 1977! Cool shit, really, from back when smog was a commodity on Wall Street like pork-bellies was. Made me think of my Dad and how many times he climbed into one of these. I remember the first time I did – and every ride after that I INSISTED that I ride in the flop down seat. New Yorkers know what I am talking about.

PUNCH BUGGY RED!

PUNCH BUGGY GREEN!!!!!

So back to the MUSTANG – after the RAMBLER MARLIN DRAGSTER!!!!

This car drew a lot of interest and it’s not the first time I’ve seen it at the Swap Meet. All of these cars and all of the old crap I was looking at throughout the day kept me thinking about how much my Dad would have liked the show. Maybe we’ll figure out a way to get him back here in September!

OK  – BACK TO THE MUSTANGS FOR SHIT’s SAKE –

This one was the prize winner in my opinion. My Uncle’s Mustangs’ cousin from the West Coast – a ’66 Luxury Convertible with Factory Air – and this car was gorgeous. I thought I had taken a pic of the whole car, but I’m sorry to say that I just took pics of the components that interested me the most – the engine:

I’m thinking this is how I would like the engine in my Uncle’s Mustang to look when I am done with it. Check out the factory air conditioning compressor! The luxury interior with wood trim:

Uncle Pete’s interior is accented with Aqua Blue trim and white framing – along with wood trim throughout. This interior was pristine.

All in all I had a great time. I learned a lot looking around at the restored vehicles and I stopped at CJPONY PARTS for a bit and got some good info and a catalog (gonna be spending some coin there for sure). I was completely aghast when I saw “QQ” classic car license plates on a ’76 Chevy Monte Carlo – I mean really? Am I getting that old?

So now I am planning my trip to Florida….

Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary! 5 years, and we still haven’t killed each other yet :-). Today, I made a final decision about how I will be getting the Mustang up here – I’ll be picking up the car myself and trailering it up to New Jersey. I am going to rent a U-HAUL van and auto transport trailer – probably without any discounts – but believe me, I haven’t given up on that yet, LOL.

I am leaving on May 3rd for a business trip to San Antonio and then I will fly over to Fort Meyers, Florida on May 6th. THEN I will rent the truck and trailer and haul my Uncle’s Mustang here to Jersey.

It’s all coming together without any real hitches so far. That is if you don’t include the bullshit script errors I had to deal with on the blog tonight. 500 errors galore. I couldn’t access anything for over an hour.

I decided to change the theme back to the original – I was using a theme template called Aruna, and I am not entirely sure that was the culprit, but I wanted to keep on the safe side. This totally sucked and I wanted to throw my mac through a window – but I am finally done, I am cranky and I am going to bed. Really, though – if this is the only hitch I have to deal with, I’ll take it!

Tomorrow, I will reserve the U-HAUL equipment and start planning my trip.

First off – I am COMMITTED to getting the Mustang brought up here by early MAY. REALLY.

Second – I am leaning towards a auto transport company. I know for sure that these companies are like snake oil salesmen – and already the snakeoilyness has occurred. I have been getting phone calls from these auto transport companies for the past few days – really, voicemails because I haven’t been picking up the phone – I even got a prerecorded message. Cheesy. Won’t be calling that one back.

I actually talked to one that sounded pretty good – now the way they got my name is I filled out a form online, and one of the questions was “is the car running” and I let them know it WASN’T!!! So this one company I talked to sounded good – and was all about quality, reliability – and it was actually a person I was speaking to on the phone. Turns out the great price that they gave me wasn’t valid because they quoted me as if the car was running.

The Mustang hasn’t been running in nearly a decade at least. Have a look at the latest pics (published with the permission of Doug Sr!)

So the gasoline in the tank is probably a decade old, too. There is no way I try to start this car. YET.

More to come – hopefully the next post will be letting you know which auto moving company I will be using. Blech – I hate dealing with folks like this….

So my main hope was to get down there myself, rent a trailer and a truck and drive my Uncle’s Mustang back to New Jersey. Don’t think that’s what is gonna happen based on the cost perspective alone – and it’s looking like there isn’t anyone who’s gonna be able to make the trip with me. Not that I wouldn’t drive this alone. I would, but it’s gonna be much more fun and easier to manage if one of my buddies would go.

So I contacted auto transport companies via the internet – and I have to tell you, this is a VERY competitive market and I got like 10 phone calls today from companies wanting to transport the car.

I really want to do this myself, and I am going to give it till the end of the week to make a decision about this. We’ll see.

So about the garage – I was sitting at my desk at work writing some crap for the job, and began to think how mundane this stuff was which made me start thinking once again about my Uncle’s Mustang. I always had issues with daydreaming in grade school – even college, haha – and there I went right off into “what if” thoughts – and I began to think about the most insane and expensive solutions like “I should just rebuild the garage at my house to fit the car” and “let me rent a closed down auto shop for $2k per month” to “let me rent a friend’s garage” to “what about my parent’s garage” to…. WAIT – a friends garage? That might work, but who? And I immediately thought of my buddy Gary.

Gary had a unique situation on his hands – he had a big house with a nice big 2-car garage and it as just him and a new puppy there. I work with Gary, so I went over to his workstation and told him about the car, the blog, and then asked him if he would rent the garage to me for a bit while I restore the car. Without giving it much thought at all, he said YES.

Forget this. I mean, are you kidding me? Things were just falling into place at every turn. Gary is renting me the place for about $250 per month and to boot, if I need to stay over to get up early to work on the car I can. Now, I come from a place where if something is right – if it is meant to be, all will fall into place. I just need to have faith that it will – and I have. So what’s next? Getting the car up here.