how did you get your 7173 mustang

[SPAIN72MUSTANG]

well,let me be the first to start,i been wanting a classic mustang for about 7 years ,so in 2010 i thougt it was time to start looking,it took a while i looked at many mustangs of our years but they need so much work,than i found her for sale in dekalb,il about a hour out side chicago in a old barn,it was stored for 15 years only 2 owners,it was good shape and had good bones but needed everything new except the body that was solid,so i made a deal for $3800 and got her home and now all the extra money i get goes to makeing her look good,as you all know its a long proscess of alittle work here and alittle work there, its a work in progess,and i love.thanks Ron

please share your story long or short!

 

[marks73]

Finished the 73 Chevelle my wife bought me for a Christmas gift and the next project was a no brainer. Had a 73 in 81 and was going to re-live my childhood. Got royally screwed on my car choice to start on

But found a literal ground up solid body. It has all worked out really well.

 

[droptop73]

After I sold my 64 GTO I wanted a 68, 69 Lemans convertible. My wife had always liked Mustangs and I really wanted a convertible so the search went toward looking for 67-70 Mustang convertibles. We did not like how they drove or performed. Being a big guy the seating position left a ton to be desired. We saw our 73 in an auto trader magazine. It was north of Detroit near Flint, I galled the guy and we met north of Lansing. We drove the car and fell in love with it immediately. You should have seen the guys face when I pulled on some coveralls and pulled the floor jack out of my truck... it was priceless. This was late October, we went to pick the car up and drove it home in a rain snow mix. I drove it the following summer and in early September a guy made a blind left turn and tore the nose off the car.

 

[marks73]

Baptism by fire I think it's called.

 

[Mister 4x4]

I think there's another version of this thread somewhere... but I never get tired of reading about everybody's cars.

I fell in love with a '71 Mach 1 my Mom's friend had when I was 14. It was the coolest car, and I even got a chance to drive it (albeit illegally... I was only 15 at the time...) - which was 'Game Over' because I simply must have one of my own someday. Fast forward to summer 2010, and I was wanting a hot rod and looking at a 2010 2SS Camaro, my wife talked me out of the car payments and getting something I could work on instead. I found mine on Craigslist San Angelo and got it for $1600. Here's one of the pictures I saw in the ad:

When I started pulling it apart, I realized that I could've had a better starting point if I'd just done some shopping around, but here in West Texas, we're literally 90 miles away from anything else worthwhile, so I was pretty much stuck with it... and my determination took over.

Since I've owned it, I've replaced just about every horizontally positioned piece of sheet metal (floors and trunk) and swapped the entire front clip for a much better one out of a '72 (i.e.: cut-off everything from the firewall forward, and welded the same from another car back onto mine):

The engine was seized (took two days, a couple cans of PB Blaster, and a BFH to get #4 and #8 out of their holes), but it was salvageable so it's been completely bored, balanced, blueprinted, and completely gone through by a local machine shop. They also installed hardened valve seats and completed a 3-angle valve job. I decided to toss in some CompCams, Keith Black, and Edelbrock performance goodies, and should expect around 400hp out of the refreshed and warmed-up 351 Cleveland 2V:

I've turned the corner on repairing major damage/replacing sheet metal and concentrating on putting new stuff back in. Hopefully, I'll be all done (shiny and driving) sometime in the spring - we'll see. I am actually pretty close to hearing it run for the first time within the next few weeks, if everything goes well. It'll be the first time the poor ol' car has run since 1980, when it was parked - most likely because of that seized engine.

Hey Mark, I think I got the same crappy [rusty] chrome nuggets yours has. LOL

Maybe our cars knew each other, Jeff - mine's DSO was Lansing.

 

[t.klapperich]

I bought my first 73 Mach 1 when I was 19. That was 31 years ago. It was an H code, completly stock. Got married at 22 and had 2 kids by the time we were 25. Bills needed to be paid, car didn't fit the family so it had to go..............God I miss that car, I have tried to find it but no luck. Fast forward 22 years. Kids are all grown, better financial position, time to find another 73 Mach 1. It took me 18 months to find the one I wanted due to being very picky and not giving in to "This one is nice, and close enough to what I want ". I stuck to my guns, wanting a Q code with a 4-speed. Found this one with the paint work completed already. I just fell into a perfect situation. Barn find, been sitting for 16 years due to a front drivers side accident and the owner could not afford to have it fixed. All original metal except the left front fender and drivers door, new full length floor pans. Original interior, ( You can still smell hay when you get in it) only 59,800 miles !

 

[Totalled]

My Dad died.

 

[Wolverine]

Not sure how to follow Totalled....

73 Mustang Fastback. 351C Auto. My dad bought new in 1973. 210k Detroit 4 season driving on original suspension(except rear springs), original unrebuilt motor, original unrebuilt transmission, all original sheet metal(no door dings, no accidents), all original interior. Stolen 1988. Found 1997 but was pretty much a piece of crap.

73 Mustang Convertible. I am the 4th owner. Bought from my father in law for $4k in 1998. Driven from Detroit to Anaheim.

 

[Tnfastbk]

So looks like everyone is going back to the beginning to their mustang beginning so here goes : I traded a 1969 model motorcycle(which I would love to have today) for my first one when I was fifteen. A 1973 Mach 1 in looking back now in not so great shape but to me it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Before I ever got to drive it myself some(insert your own explicative here) hit my dad and myself and totaled it. Used the insurance money to buy a 1973 Grande', which I drove all the way till my senior year in high school. Traded it off. Then a few months later bought a 1978 Cobra II. Kept that a few months, got married and joined the military. Around 1993 my dad and I traded a cougar he had for a 1973 fastback for me to build. Would turn out to be our last one together. In 1995 bought a new one for a daily driver. Got a divorce in 1996 and lost the 73( now my Uncles car ) in the war and ended up selling the 95. So fast forward to the current one, Had been looking around for another to build and had not found anything I could afford that was not just total junk. A friend had told me about this car several times and in my mind it was just another out of my price range. So we had been to Kentucky looking at a 63 Fairlane and on the way back he brought it up again, I finally said just call the guy, he did we went over there on our way back from Kentucky and looked it over. Looked at the serial number and found out it was a original 1971 Mach1 4 speed M code car and solid. Before I could say anything my buddy threw out a price much lower than the asking price. The guy said if you will pay me right now he would take it. So after a trip to the bank and paying the man, here we are many more dollars later

 

[will e]

At 15 I took a job scrubbing fish pans at a local dinner theater. My father made me put away part of each paycheck. One month before my 16th birthday a friend had a 73 mach 1 his parents had given him as an easter present for sale. He had messed up and they told him he had to sell the car. I got it. Cool car for a 16 year old.

3 years to the day a lady made a left turn in front of me and the car was totalled. It was pretty messed up and back then it wasn't that old. If that happened now we might have tried to save it.

So I went shopping. I can tell you stories of the different mustangs I looked at but in the end I went for the car my girl friends best friend was selling. 73 convertible. purple window tint, fake spoked rims. Bought it and still own it 28 years later. I grabbed the wheels, guages, door panels, seats, sway bar and whatever else I could from the mach 1. In a way I still drive my 'first car' since some of it moved to my second car.

 

[OLE PONY]

I bought my 73 Convertible back in 1974. The original owner was my girlfriend at the time. She had bought a 70 Mustang Sportsroof with a 351 and a Hurst 4 speed. She had a hard time learning to use the clutch and was just not comfortable with driving it, so I helped start searching for a new 73 Mustang. She had also previously owned a 65 Mustang and was hooked on Mustangs. She liked the 73 Grande's, but we came across a salesman that said he had a nicely optioned 73 Convertible coming in on the truck and that the original purchaser backed out on the deal. I talked her into taking a look at the convertible and reminded her that the 73 was going to be the last Mustang convertible every built!!!

So we showed up at the dealer the next day, but the convertible was still up on the transport truck. No hubcaps installed, not detailed, and as I recall the convertible top was wrapped in brown protective paper. So we came back the next day and it looked great, so she bought it without much coercion from me. Well the Mustang II's came out and she decided she had to have one of those. The dealer did not want to give her much on trade-in, so I dumped my 69 Firebird and bought the 73 Convertible from her. It was only about 9 months old when I bought it.

Although I was tempted to sell it a few times over the years I'm glad I have been able to hang onto it. It got it's first repaint in 2010.

 

[whitesoc]

I've had a few Mustangs since I turned 16 , a couple were rusted junk, and a couple just didn't fit in with life at the time. The car that really hurt to sell was my 70 Mach One, I sold that car when my wife was expecting our son. I thought that I was being smart by listing it for sale in October, because up in the great white north no one buys a muscle car at that time of year since the first thing you do is usually store it for the winter. I listed that car at the beginning of October told my wife if it didn't sell by the time the listing ran out I would just store it until I could put the cash and time into it. As luck would have it the last day of the listing a guy called and asked about the car.....came to look at it 22:00....and bought it( gave me more than what I was asking). Swore at myself the day I saw that car leave the driveway.....said right then and there I'd have another Mustang. Fast forward to about 5 years ago now.... the kid was 11 at the time and I said one day to my wife I'd like to get a car my son and I could work on, and she said Okay! For a joke I checked out ebay and found my car listed....fell in love with it (even though I never saw it in person) and put a bid in. Got the car, saw it for the first time when I flew down to Leesburg Va. to pick it up, jumped in and drive it home to Ancaster Ont.

 

[71MACH-1]

Saw it for sale and paid cash.

Its was for sale for 30 minutes!

 

[goodnigh]

Was just looking for a set of wheels, did not care much what kind of car just so it ran.

A friend of a friend had a car for sale $2500. He kept talking about the Cleveland, toploader

and 9" pumpkin. Meant nothing to me having never owned a Ford product except the 1961

Comet. Have probably owned two dozen cars over the years but never a Mustang, I was

always a GM man except for the occasional Mercedes and not to forget the '71 Datsun 240Z

and '84 CJ7. I have spent more time, money and energy getting the Grande back to its

original form than I ever spent on all the other cars combined. There is something about a Mustang.

Nuff said.

mike

 

[jeremycfr]

Dad bought it new June 30, 1971 and he gave it to me 23 years ago as my first car. Actually, I will be putting it in my name for the first time in a couple of weeks.

 

[Stangace20]

My dad is a major gearhead and grease monkey and has been rebuilding cars,bikes, and really anything with engines since he was a teenager. Though he is much more into european cars and japanese bikes. He's restored/rebuilt MG's, Austin Healys, Minis,etc

It was me being the mustang fan that eventually convinced him to get one to restore as a father/son project. While originally I had wanted a late 60's mustangs since I had seen them all going for pretty decent prices when I was 16. By the time we got around to the project (7 years later) the prices on them had of course gone WAY up. So of course most that we found that were worth restoring were really out of our budget.

My dad basically stumbled upon the 72 just going through craigslist. And though I originally wasn't a fan of the body style at the time. But over the course of the 4 yr restoration I became a major fan of them. And in the end I'm glad we got it versus some boring old 60's mustang that you see all the time at every single car show you ever go to,lol

 

[mustang7173]

Since I did not want to drive my 1971 sports roof much since restoring it, plus I have always liked the hardtops, I went looking for one. I found the 1973 Mustang in an newspaper ad for $300.00 and drove it home. It came with a 302 - 2v with A/C. I have restored it one time before, but the rust came back and I ended up stripping down again and having the rust areas sand blasted via a portable blaster. This a 1994 Mustang GT 302 Roller motor built with Tri-State aluminum cylinder heads with roller rockers. It is backed by a 1990 mustang AOD transmission. The engine was built by Bill Hauser of Fuquay Varina, NC. Here are some pictures of the old 302-2v and new one 302-4V.

mustang7173

 

[73QCodeGrande]

Back in high school I had a 73 Cougar XR7 and a friend had a 73 Mach1. I always liked his car.

Flash forward to Dec. 2011. I had a 2000 Jeep I had built up and just wasn't using much anymore so I sold it and started searching for a classic car. since my father-in-law has a 65 mustang and the fact I always wanted one a 71-73 Mustang seemed like a good candidate. In Feb of this year I found one on Craigslist in Lafayette Ind (about 170 miles south of me). Contacted the owner and after a number of emails and about 2 dozen pictures I took a trailer down to look at it. The owner said he had taken a couple trophy's with the car and wanted 10,000 for it. He had all the receipts on the restoration of the car. It had a few issues I saw so I ended up paying 9400 for it loaded it up and brought it home.

Since then I have been working on completing it and its about 98% done to my satisfaction. Had it appraised at 18,500 and finished the show season out with 7 trophy's!

 

[BenD]

i was actually looking for a 65/66 Mustang, but somehow i got home with the '72.. the 65/66 were just out of my pricerange . still i have no regrets getting the '72..