ZOMGPONIEZ!!!!!1111eleven1!!

I don't recall if Stacy ever asked me for a pony when she was little, but let's pretend she did. Let's also pretend that I was an ogre, yelled NO BEAT IT, and made her cry and cry. It's never too late to atone for old fictional trepasses, so when my buddy Jason offered to sell me his 1965 Mustang coupe, I got out the checkbook. Stacy has a pony! I'm the hero! Yay!. I'm awesome.

The good: It had a earlier extensive restoration. It comes with tons of documentation. It's a V8 car. It's straight.  It was stored inside.

The bad: It had an earlier extensive restoration. Mice and wasps made themselves at home inside. It doesn't start. It doesn't stop. It smells funny.

So after I got the car, I started off by doing what I always do: Go into a super-anal information gathering fit. After all what the fuck do I know about Mustangs? I'm an Oldsmobile guy for chrissakes. I see the guy who did the resto in '88 used the trim codes and the VIN from the driver's door tag to outfit the car. I even find what appears to be a matching original factory option sheet. Problem? The door tag says 1964-1/2 D-code (early 289 4V) GT car. Tag also says it's a white automatic. Ah crap, nothing jives here, which means the driver's door, including the trim code tag, is probably a junkyard replacement. I feel all smug and superior now because I have the interwebs and can lay the smack down on some dude from the 80's with my superior door tag-decoding skillz! I'm all about the unfair advantage and the taunting. Hah! Past Mustang restoring dude, you mistook Poppy Red for Rangoon Red, and who cares, cause the car was supposed to be Wimbeldon White! My grandmother even knows that "M" means white! She also knows the difference between a C-4 auto and a 3-speed! D-code car with a 2-barrel carb? Nuh-uuuuh! Who's you daddy, huh? Who?  Tha's RIGHT! Pwn3d!

(decorum restored)

So, the driver's side inner fender shows me what I already suspected: it's a 1965 C-code (289 2V) totally-not-a-GT car. No problem. I'm still wondering what color this car really was, but not having a trim code to go by is actually kind of liberating. We can pick any color from the 1965 list. Stacy likes Twighlight Turquoise. And a racing stripe. Time to get started.