I love a good automotive mystery! So reader Jayden P’s recent sighting has me intrigued. He spotted this 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 a few weeks ago while driving around in Twin Falls, Idaho. He snapped a couple of pictures and decided to come back another time to have a closer look. Unfortunately, when he stopped by recently, the car was gone. Perhaps the owner decided to move it out of sight? Maybe someone stopped, made them an offer, and it’s now on its way to receiving a full restoration? We may never know what has happed with this Mach 1.
As you can see, it looks like someone started restoring it, but they didn’t get much further than pulling the engine out and sanding the paint off. I struggle to understand the thought process that leads so many to start out their classic car project by sanding all the paint off. I get the desire to fix body damage and to make the car look great again, but body work is challenging, paint is expensive, and old oxidized paint is a better base to paint over than rusty metal. It seems to me like getting it running and driving should be priority number one, then worry about cosmetics once you can drive the car to the paint shop to get a quote on what it’s going to cost to get it painted. With paint jobs easily costing $10k or more these days, restoring the paint that’s there seems like a much better option. At this point, the only option for this Pony is a coat of fresh paint.
From what Jayden could tell based on the badges, this car was equipped with a 351 V8. This isn’t the most desirable of engine options for the Mach 1, but that isn’t to say this isn’t a desirable car. Examples in drivable condition can easily go for $30k+. If this one could be had cheap enough, it would definitely be worth restoring. That brings us back to the question of what exactly happened to it. Is it parked somewhere else now? Has it been moved indoors? And will it ever see the open road again?
Why is it I always really feel like you do?