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"Reaching For Your Dreams"
By Kevin Crader
Article Reprinted Courtesy of the February 2009 Issue of the Mustang Times
Growing up, I always wanted to get a 1970 Mach 1 before I turned 40. I had always seen people in High School with those really cool Mach's or even an occasional Chevelle or 'Cuda and thought, " One day I will have a cool car like that, before I turn 40". My first car was a 1966 Mustang coupe with a straight 6 cylinder motor, I picked out a '69
coupe with a 289 V8 but my dad was afraid that I would wrap it around a tree and strongly encouraged me to get the 6 cyl. Mustang instead. So four years ago, I started my quest for my 69 or 70 Mach1. I started looking on EBay, Collector Car, and several other websites, I finally ended up back at Collector Car.Com and located this killer '70 Mach1 in Acapulco Blue that was advertised for $25,000. I sent the owner an email asking if he would be willing to take $15K for the car and that I was not trying to insult him but that was all the money I had at the time. They said that they would not and needed the money because they had a 1969 Mach1 that they wanted to restore.
Three weeks later I received a call from the couple saying that they had changed their minds about the project car and said that they would sell it to me for $5,000. I called my buddy Marc and he was willing to go on a road trip with me down to Albany, Oregon to check out this vintage car. I had received photos of the car, it had some rust and the owner was not trying to hide that fact, they were very up front and said that it needed a lot of work and that they just did not have time to work on it. After a 4 hour drive to our destination, we examined this Wimbledon White 69 Mach1 with a Black deck stripe and let me tell you, I was really overwhelmed. After jacking the car up and ensuring the car was safe to crawl underneath it, we ventured fourth. We found rust everywhere, from the front bumper to the back tailpipe and from the top of the front windshield down the bottom of the floor pans. I do not posses a lot of mechanical skills, just ask my wife, she will be the first one to tell you and this car needed a lot of cutting, welding, fabrication, and a lot of other work that was way outside my scope of knowledge. As we were walking back to the car, I spotted the 70 Mach1 that I saw on Car Collector and I just went nuts. It was the car of my dreams, the one I have always coveted, but it was way out of my price range. Needless to say, it was a very long drive back to Seattle that day, with the rain coming down hard and 190 miles to go back home, I kept thinking of the 70 Mach1 in Acapulco Blue that was not going to be achievable.
Another three weeks had passed and I had received another email, it was from Tim and Kim, the owners of my dream car. They had decided to drop the price of my Dream Car down to $19K but would be willing to let me have it for $17K. I had not spent a lot of time looking over the car the first time around because it was way out of my price range, so I hopped on the phone and called my buddy Marc and asked him if he would be available for another road trip back down to Albany.
When I told him what was going on, he was all in. Marc has had a lot of project cars and is very knowledgeable about many different cars and the special features that accompany those model's.
We drove back down to Albany and gave this car a huge going over, the car was in amazing shape, and had no rust on it. It had a paint job that was about 6 years old and showed only minor rock chips and normal wear. The car had about 125,000 on the body and the motor had just been rebuilt with only about 2,300 miles on it. It was raining outside and I was not sure how the owners would feel about me taking it for a test drive. When you are spending that kind of money, you run the car through its paces. My buddy Marc climbed into the back seat ( which we all know that there is not a lot of room back there..) and with the owner in the passenger seat, took it for a spin. The car handled like a dream with tight steering and quick responsiveness. We went down the windy road, powering in and out of the curves with complete control. A couple of times I glanced back at Marc and he just had a big smile on his face and gave me a double thumbs up! I was still driving carefully since it was not my car so when we came up to a stop sign, I was pleasantly surprised at what happened next. This car had a 351 Cleveland and was an automatic, which was just fine with me since I have a tendency to go through clutches like I do socks.
The owner said to get on it, drop the car into 1st gear and punch it, well, he did not have to say it twice. I jumped on the accelerator and shot straight down the road with the biggest grin on my face.... This car was going to be mine!
I had to go the work in Hawaii for two weeks so I gave Tim and Kim a $1,000 and then they agreed to trailer the car up to my house free of charge so it would be in my drive way when I got home. Let me tell you, I am not the most patient man when it comes to waiting and it was the longest two weeks on my life but well worth the wait.
Four years have past and I have done several improvements, mostly cosmetic. Perhaps my biggest task was to repaint the inside of the engine compartment without pulling the motor. My good Mustang buddy Pat got me started with showing me how to sand and prep the engine compartment by hand sanding and sanding and sanding. It took about 3 weeks over the month of October and it turned out really well, I believed I even surprised a lot of folks by stepping outside of my comfort zone and just going for it. My car club, Mustangs Northwest, has been an incredible resource for me in helping me with restoring my Mach1. I think that the Mustang community in general is full of people with the passion and enthusiasm of folks that are willing to share their knowledge and insight with you and even assist in your car projects unconditionally just to make sure that you as a Mustang owner, achieve the complete experience.
Never lose sight of your dreams!
Kevin Crader / Seattle, WA
Mustangs Northwest
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