2. The Beginning:
Pictures showing a "walk-around" before major work was started sometime around early summer '03. After sitting for so long, the Mustang needed a new coat of primer. It was red primer for a while (while we still lived in California) and later changed to gray (in Illinois - not because the weather!). You can still see some of the red primer in the rear end photo.
SIDE STORY: When we moved to La Verne from Glendora, the Mustang was parked outside the garage for a few days after we first moved in. Our neighbor, across the street, came over to me one day while I was outside doing yard work and told me that the neighborhood association 'rules' didn't allow anyone to park their junk cars in their driveway. I tried to be nice about it, and told her that we just moved in and were still unpacking and stuff, and that the 'car' (not junk) would be moved to the side yard soon. I thanked her for her 'warning' then grumbled off. I never did really like her after that. The car was pretty ugly being rust red primer color and no tail lights or bumpers. It was eventually moved out of the front, behind a gate, to be forgotten.You can see that the front end has been dis-assembled and the side windows taken out (hard to tell, but the open door photos don't show a window inside). After being in storage for so long, I wanted to get it running before tackling the body work. We (Chris and I) tried starting it up but because the moving company made us drain the gas tank before we moved to Illinois (about seven years ago), it needed to be re-filled. After going through a full can of starting fluid and carb cleaner and draining the battery, we gave up. It started, but ran only for a short while each time.