My first car was a brand new gold 66 Mustang. When I bought the car I thought it was about as cool as they came for the price. Since I was a graduating college student, price was kind of paramount as I was broke and couldn't afford a large loan payment on my $1.75/hr lab assistant wages. The Mustang took me to my first job in Arkansas from Iowa. It went through three manual transmission rebuilds while under warranty, survived a roll over accident on I-70 in Missouri and a fender bender collision on glare ice in Cedar Rapids, IA.

After two years of bad luck and wrecks, the Mustang made it to a new car dealer's lot in Muscatine, IA with five cylinders (it was a six) functioning with a burned out exhaust valve and a shaky clutch for a trade in on a real muscle car. The salesman took the Mustang for a ride to check it out and had a terrible time with the clutch and shifting gears. He admitted that he hadn't driven a car with a manual transmission for about 20 years and took the car on trade in faith. The Mustang was on the lot for less than 24 hours before it found a new owner.

Jim