- Seller: Robert M (Contact)
- Location: Inverness, Florida
- Mileage: 000000 Shown
- Chassis #: 5R08A
- Title Status: Clean
- Engine: 289 4V V8
- Transmission: 4-Speed Manual
Who doesn’t like an original-era Mustang? OK, maybe Chevy people, but the rest of us are all in, especially when you’re talking about a 1965, and an A-code convertible at that. The chance for you to own this car is presented on Barn Finds, and if you come up with the cash, you’ll further need a method of transport from Inverness, Florida to your nearest restoration shop.
So why not just jump in and drive? Because for $12 grand, you’re getting a project of the first order. The car needs everything, from engine work to taillights. Literally, there are no rear lights in the car at present. So why would you want to take on this project? Because you’ll have a perfectly proportioned, loved-wherever-it-goes machine when you’re done. There’s going to be a ton of work to be done, including replacing the tattered top, working on the engine (which, at present, at least can be said to turn over and run off a squirt bottle), and redoing the exterior panels. Oh, you’ll also have to replace the missing clutch pedal assembly for the desirable four-speed manual transmission. Its absence suggests, perhaps, that once upon a time, this Mustang was seen as a parts car. My, how times have changed as these collectibles have become more and more rare.
If this car doesn’t quite have every option you might want, it does have some good ones. The downside? There’s manual steering rather than power-assist, for one thing, and drum brakes. But each of those can be upgraded with perfectly fitting kits installed during restoration. Offsetting this slight lack is the fact that the car has the rare A-code 289, an upgrade from the 260-CID offered in the first of the first gen cars and the later C-code 289 more familiar to most (Quick refresher: the Mustang came out on April 17, 1964, and the 1966 models were released in September 1965, so we’re talking about a 17-month production cycle for the first-year cars.) The A-code was an upgrade in power over the C-code, delivered with a factory four-barrel carb. The only thing to top this was the super-rare 289 K-code, at 271 hp.
Make no mistake, you are going to be doing a thorough resto on this car before you will be cruising town with the top down. The seller perhaps says it best when he intones, “Potentially valuable car—worth doing!” He’s right, but it’s going to take some bucks to get the car there. Are your pockets deep enough for this challenge?
Worth doing? Absolutely, price is too high for this type of project. Too much needs attention. If it were running, driving, I’d be interested. These cars are easy to work on, get parts for and it’s just plain laziness on sellers parts to do the easy things, like cleaning up the engine bay, fixing small issues. Especially for such. High asking price.
Back in the day, these were chattle. Cars in this condition were parked because they weren’t even worth looking at. Now that they sat for years (and got better?) everyone is looking at them.
I guess you could take the Vin tag and build a new car around it. That might be cheaper than a restoration.
Bingo. Hello, Dynacorn bodies? Can you drop ship me a new body for a 1965 Mustang Convertible? Thank you very much! I don’t think there will be much left of the body on this one after either hot tanking or media blasting the existing body. The drive train may be worth saving, but the body is too far gone to save and most of the interior is gone, period! The Dynacorn body is over $18k all by itself, and by the time you rebuild the drive train and buy all of the parts for this puppy, $50k will have left your bank account, and that’s if you do all of the work yourself! Write more checks to a shop to do the job for you!
way overpriced 6k at most
Barely a 1000 dollar parts car. Rusted floors and no brake master clyinder.
I think someone slipped a decimal point in the price, $1200, not $12,000 is closer to the mark, LOL!
Note the Porsche 928 behind this car in the pictures. Do you think he meant $12k for the Porsche and not the Mustang? LOL!
Get the Porsche for 12k and you get barely a Mustang parts car with it. Heck there is even a kitchen sink in the background.
i don’t see the value here. i see a ton of money and labor
Looks like an extra zero was added to the price. I’m sure it was just an oversight.
Great minds think alike, LOL!
Inverness California ?
Or
Inverness Florida ?
Point Reyes, CA area. 30 miles north of SF on the coast.
That’s a lot of money for a used-up, partially picked over parts car. Hard pass.
A code cars are also not rare; it was also the base engine option for the GT model, and they sold more than a few of those.
Rare would be the K code.
If I acquired this, I’d drop the body on a Miata chassis.
Why drop this load of Swiss cheese onto a Miata chassis, when for just $6k more than the asking price for this rust bucket, you can buy a brand-new body to drop onto the Miata Chassis instead? By the time you finish the rust repairs on this beater, you’ll be way over the price of a brand new body shell from Dynacorn. Just askin’.
LOL it was a nod to the M1stang that was featured here, at the time of posting:
https://barnfinds.com/win-win-situation-2003-mazda-miata-m1stang/