We hate to see things like this happen. Mike Gomez, of Glendale, Arizona, recently wrote to us looking for help locating a straight body for his Mustang. Why? We’ll let him tell the story:
Thirty some years ago I came to own my first 69 Mustang, little did I know how unique a car I had. It was a 428 Mach 1 Cobra Jet 4 speed with a 9″ positraction rear end, power steering, power brakes and tilt steering wheel. I bought the car from my cousin when he got too many tickets and his Dad made him sell it. I had the car for about three years, then got married and sold it to buy my first house. I’ve owned many other cars that today are worth a fortune, who knew that they would go up in value so much.
Well, years passed and I always regretted selling the Mustang so I made a decision with my Wife, Sheri, to get a project car. She found a 69 Mustang on the Internet back in Illinois and we bought the car looking only at the pictures on the Internet. That is the last time I’ll do that!
We had the car shipped out and when it showed up it was a “Rust Bucket!” They had literally whitewashed house paint on it, the floor boards were rotted out so you could see through, the fenders were toast and so on. You get the picture.
I had to strip the car all the way down to the shell. Everything I put back on the car was brand new, hand sanded, sandblasted and primered ready for the final paint. I had to make numerous trips to the hospital to get metal out of my eyes during the years. All this work was done by myself in a little 2 car garage. I bought a new compressor, tools and so on to do the work.
My wife, at first, kept saying “Every time I look at the car there is LESS of the car.” Everywhere there was rust or body rot I had to cut out and replace with steel. That was how it went the first year.
All the time my neighbors were watching me, little did I know that a car thief was lurking in the shadows in the neighborhood. Years passed and the car was close to being finished and registered to drive legally on the road. Well, one early Sunday morning I came in from working on the car at 5:30am, sat down to have a cup of coffee and I heard my car start up.
I ran out to the garage to see my car backing out with the thieving b**tard driving my car. Instinctively I ran after my car, dove into the driver’s side window trying to stop the b**tard. As he was going backwards he was punching me in the head as I tried to pull out the ignition key. I lost my footing, fell to my knees and then my right side then he ran over my left foot.
He continued to go backwards, peeling out about 5 houses down the street, lost control as he couldn’t handle the power of the 351 engine and ended up in the front of a neighbor’s house. He got out and ran as I walked down the street yelling and screaming like a nut. My wife was on the phone calling 911. I then got to see my car, it was a mess…I started crying.
I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, all this time I didn’t know my foot was broken. My adrenaline was so high I didn’t feel any pain. I was devastated, The years of hard work down the drain. I guess the guy lives in my neighborhood and has been watching me and the progress on the car. I guess he just had to have it.
The car is back in my garage, I couldn’t even look at it for 6 days. I am so lucky he didn’t kill me. The thief is in jail, he has no money. I pulled a 2nd mortgage on my house to do the car and now I am tapped out. My homeowners insurance denied my claim, I have nothing left to fix my car or the heart to do the work again at this time. Maybe after I have healed emotionally, physically and mentally I can start to rebuild my car AGAIN but that is going to be a long time.
If any of our readers can help a fellow hardworking car guy out, let us know and we’ll put you in touch with Mike.
UPDATE (28.July 2009): The Phoenix Fox station had a news report about the incident: