True enough, you don’t see these every day, but that doesn’t make buying a car like this 1969 Mustang Coupe your best idea. In fact, this one presents well in photos, but thank goodness for an honest seller and his details of the condition of the sheet metal. If what you read doesn’t dissuade you, the car is available here on eBay for an opening bid of $12,000. The car lives in Columbus, OH, presently.
Twelve grand for a coupe with admitted rust issues? Well, maybe. Glancing at the photos shows that the styling of this one still hearkens back to the cute coupe that invented the Ponycar in April of 1964. And the exterior photos show well, so it’s surprising to hear the description given in the ad: “Shows signs of rust and previous repair in the typical Mustang areas.” This includes present bubbling in a number of spots, including the quarter panels. But here’s the shocker: “I’ve noticed some rust in the trunk drop-offs.” Oh my—is that another word for “frame rails”? Now, the Mustang, being a unibody, doesn’t actually have a frame, but those are the parts that make you immediately open the trunk of ANY Mustang you’re thinking of putting your kid’s college fund into and looking for corrosion.
Can any of that be ignored or overlooked? We’ve all seen cars like this at shows, the owner either oblivious or ignoring the problems, but everyone else thinking it’s a ticking corrosion bomb that is going to be expensive to fix. Were you to show the car, you’d be proud of its full wheel covers, faux stinger hood, and general proper proportions, and you could add some value by cleaning up under the hood and replacing some hoses and so forth with from-the-catalogue “original” stuff. But those bubbles. Is that why it’s been titled in enough states to appear like it’s running from the FBI?
But say you can overlook all of that. This one’s going to be a bit of a job to drive, underpowered from its six-banger and with no power steering or brakes. That three-speed manual transmission, too, if it’s like its kin, is short in first, long in second, and tops out pretty fast in third. But you’re not buying a muscle car, and you know it. You’re buying a runaround car. The interior seems to have had a complete kit. So what’s left for you to do is drive, and hope that the body doesn’t unravel too fast on you.
The trunk drop-off is the vertical sheetmetal that connects the trunk floor to the bottom edge of the quarter panel. It is separate from the heavier-gauge “frame” rail.
Give me an ‘N’…
Being a Mopar weenie, I’ve come to expect a little more ‘green’ in my ‘lime’ green.
And i thought todays other Mustang was a bad color.
Keep in mind it’s an Ohio car so unless it was never exposed to unfavorable Ohio climate it is going to have rust! Looks half descent compared to a lot of cars advertised on here