How much story do you need? Apparently, the seller of this 1966 Mustang coupe thinks that just describing his car is not enough. So he supplies a “little old lady” tale which describes an original owner who drove the car for a quarter-century and then parked it until recently. Just as It was going to be restored by the proverbial “neighbor,” she dies. Now he’s selling. If you want to be the one to drive it next, you need to do better than the current bid of $6700 here on ebay, which in any case is under reserve. If you win, find a way to get a truck out to Port Orchard, Washington to collect your car.

But know what you’re getting before you dive in. This is essentially a no-options car. It’s a 6-cylinder T-code engine with the three-speed manual transmission. But there is a considerable bonus in the red vinyl interior. So many Mustangs have a black gut. This red really pops, and it complements the silver exterior handsomely. In addition, what’s there, aside from the driver’s seat, looks decent. Putting skins on both front buckets is not an expensive proposition, and it might be all you need to do right now. That is, if you can pry the adorable but slightly menacing pit bull (I think) out of the driver’s seat. Then again, the photos are extremely tightly cropped, so you don’t really know how the dash pad looks. Is this on purpose.? You can spy a cheapo speaker cut into the door panel in one image. That means more work to undo.

What you don’t know, further, can hurt you. The body probably needs restoration, though the photos would indicate that the patina on this car is kind of cool. Is the paint useable as it is currently? Perhaps, but we need to know some things before jumping in: What’s the car look like in the trunk? What do the front edges of the doors look like? If they’ve been exposed to moisture, there’s possibly unresolved or repaired rust. Why be suspicious? Because there are some things that don’t add up here. The seller, in that (tall) tale about one owner, doesn’t account for the when and why of the bumper being painted black. Does a woman in her 70s (if I do that math right, since she graduated from high school in 1966, when she bought this Mustang) do that, or commission such a thing? And what’s with those wheels, a pure product of a teenager-style hop-up from a few decades ago, probably the 1970s? If this stuff doesn’t make sense, what else should raise doubts in the minds of potential bidders about the one-owner story, and thus the car’s origins? Again with the tight shots—there is no way to know if the car has power steering or brakes. Let’s assume no. Not a deal breaker, but a limitation in terms of value. But you’re left to your own devices to sort this out.

However, no matter what the truth of the story is, this ends up being a “drive or restore” conundrum. If you get the car for decent money—under 10K?—you’re best off using it as is. Why not? The lines are classic. But can you make money on it if you decide to restore it? Likely not, because in the end, there’s no proof of the history  that would add value, and there are counter-indicators that suggest that what’s really in front of us is just a low-options Mustang like so many others of the 1966 model year. But  to finish off, let’s add the Seinfeld line: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”