Sometimes, you see a car with an aftermarket paint job and it draws a groan. This is understandable – quality can vary greatly from paint shop to paint shop, and for all you know, the guy did it in his backyard. This 1982 Ford Mustang GT has clearly not been treated to a concours finish anytime recently, but personally, I dig this lime green and black combo – and might even try to recreate it when the inevitable respray occurs. Have you ever found you like non-factory colors better than what was offered? Check out this project-grade Mustang listed here on eBay with bids sitting at $3,000 and a Buy-It-Now of $4,000.
We’re getting pretty close on the seller meeting his reserve number, so who knows how much longer this tired ‘Stang will last. It has all the right trimmings to be an epic period-correct build, with the turbine-style wheels, rear window louvers, and the GT-spec enhancements like the rear spoiler and front air dam with fog lights. Despite being a project, this Mustang is seemingly “all there” – and by that I mean the body kit is complete and undamaged, and the rear louvers haven’t been stripped off and sold for $50 and a six-pack of Coors. The even fading of the paint suggests it’s been sitting outside for an extended period of time.
The inner jams suggest this was a proper respray at one time, going all the way down to the inner crevices. The paint also has far more “bounce” in the areas that don’t get blasted by sunlight 24/7, so maybe the exterior can come back with a proper buffing. I’ve had vehicles with factory single stage paint come back to life to a staggeringly high degree in terms of restoring the finish, but I’m not sure if you’d have the same luck with a respray done by someone who wasn’t a factory-trained technician. The manual gearbox makes all the difference here and increases the desirability of this early, four-eyed GT even more. The seller notes that you’ll need a carpet kit at the bare minimum to restore this interior back to OEM glory.
Again, we see evidence of the green paint going into the engine bay and up against the firewall, suggesting there was an attempt to not just do a quicky respray in the garage one night. The seller notes that the Mustang “drives great” and has been treated to some new parts, including an aluminum radiator, new tires, brakes, and rotors, and that the pain-in-the-neck job of replacing the heater core has been done. That’s not a project you take on if you’re truly skimping on a project, so I’d take it as a good sign he did that work. I’m clearly smitten with the lime green paint job; would you try and re-create it or go back to a factory color?
Dual Snorkel 🤿
Dual cool air feeds from inside fenders, ’82 – ’85 all HOs and then in ’86 with fuel injection the filter moved the passenger
Fender like we know but a football sized silencer inside fender…that came off ASAP – sounded 100% better (ok, noisier induction) and arguably faster. It was on the one I owned.
Ford Team under CEO Petersen wanted a four barrel in ’82 but there was not time for the required EPA 50K mile cycle of emission testing + clearance issues I read. They were putting the time in to make these reliably run better, faster. We know all this – Good Luck!
Fantastic colours, if you are a fan of the Muppets!
The later stock Mustang wheels tell me this car was born with TRXs.
I like the lime green and can see redoing it, but I’d black out the window frames and just the vertical bars of the grille but body color the hood scoop.
It ain’t easy being green!
I’m not a fan of non-factory colors and this car is a good example of why. The factory spent a lot of time carefully creating appealing colors. Even a different manufacturer’s colors are usually better than custom mixes. Mercedes silver seems to work on many cars, to my eye. OK, time to get off the soapbox. Let ‘er rip, tater chip! It’s all for the fun of it anyway.
Green is my favorite color but not this shade and definitely not on a car let alone a mustang. A lot of work went into this color change to bad they went with this shade.
Already sold!
If you couldn’t see this color, you could certainly hear it! I think it’s fun! You could pick it out quickly in a parking lot if you forgot where you parked it!
Man neon color cars is deal breaker and buzz kill for me.
82 first year was a two barrel. Peppy compared to what they had previously but underwhelming. Great platform for modification.
This car would look a lot better with a black hood and grill