Never Stop Driving #71: Buy my Mustang

Regular readers know that I am a serial owner of collector cars, so they will not be surprised to hear that the time has come for me to part with my 1986 Ford Mustang GT. I’m offering it without reserve on Hagerty Marketplace, and the highest online auction bidder will get the car. Kindly have a look and share the listing with anyone interested.

Naturally, my opinions about the Ford, as expressed in the listing description, are biased. That said, I’d gladly sell it to a friend, something conventional wisdom suggests not to do. My Mustang is a solid but imperfect driver-quality example of the so-called Fox-body generation. I bought it in 2021 because Sam, my youngest son, had a thing for loud V-8s. I’d looked at plenty of similar cars and most were modified or thrashed. This one had only two previous owners and the second one preferred to keep it in the garage rather than drive it: there were only 53,000 miles on the odometer.

The car’s mechanical needs gave me and Sam something to do over the last winter. Parts are easy to find and relatively cheap, another reason to love Fox bodies. We yanked the transmission to replace the clutch and rear seal, bled the spongy brakes, changed the fluids, and installed new shocks. We did not fix the air conditioning, which is in place but not working. Since Sam’s main attraction was the V-8 rumble, we bought a Flowmaster exhaust system to amplify the sound.

Car projects are an excuse to engage with others and that certainly proved true with the GT. Wes Duenkel, a photographer and car writer who knows the Fox body’s peculiarities and wrote a book about later Stangs, was invaluable. When the car was running a bit warm, Duenkel told me to let the car cool and then squeeze the upper radiator hose. After a coolant change, that hose typically holds an air bubble that restricts coolant flow. Problem solved. Another lesson!

In May 2022, Sam and I drove the freshly prepped Mustang from Michigan to Charlotte, North Carolina, to visit the NASCAR museum and take in a race at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem. We naturally avoided highways and the GT’s handling surprised me on two-lane. It only weighs about 3000 pounds and it feels agile, a small car with a big engine. I handed the keys to Hagerty’s Cameron Neveu and he shared his experiences with the car here.

Since then, we’ve barely driven it. Sam’s moved on to other interests as I knew he would. He’s a kid and that’s his job—to go from one obsession to another. I’m grateful I seized the opportunity to share our car passion. We made our memories with the Mustang and now it’s time for someone else to make theirs.

Selling a car is always somewhat torturous for me because the process reveals how much money I devote to my hobby. A rough addition of my receipts for parts and services shows I spent about seven grand, including a big chunk to have the faded gray exterior trim painted black. I expect to “buy high and sell low” but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel a tinge of regret sometimes, too. Fun costs money, however, and I have no complaints.

I chose Hagerty’s marketplace not only because I work for the company but also because the platform verifies the buyers and sellers, handles the payment, and assists with the ownership transfer. There’s a level of security in the transaction that’s not included with other auction sites. The person in charge of our marketplace, Ken Ahn, spoke to these advantages here. You can ask questions about the car on the listing, and I’ll answer them there.

In the broader automotive world, the uncertainty over EVs and autonomous cars continues. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rolled back the U.K.’s EV-only mandate from 2030 to 2035. Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company will continue to invest in hybrids, a possible bridge between gas cars and pure EVs. Former Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda has been saying the same thing for years: the rush to pure EVs should be tempered by a greater push for more cost-effective plug-in hybrids. Toyota, however, recently announced a major investment in solid-state battery technology that the company hopes will dramatically improve EV range and cost. Hydrogen as a fuel source remains in the picture. The FIA announced a hydrogen-powered race series to start in 2025. These are exciting times.

Last week, I revealed that I bought another Miata, my fifth. In case you’re wondering about my repeated love for Mazda’s charming roadster, Jason Cammisa just debuted a terrific explainer. Enjoy.

P.S.: Your feedback is very welcome. Comment below!

Please share this newsletter with your car-obsessed friends and encourage them to sign up for the free weekly email. The easy-to-complete form is here. And if you’d like to support the efforts of Hagerty Media, please consider joining the Hagerty Drivers Club.