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1965 Mustang - $17,450 not mine


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Terry, like the predecessor 1955-57 Thunderbirds, fit and finish on some Ford products was all over the place.  I’ve owned at least 40 early Mustangs, sold the last HiPo convertible about 12 years ago.  Prices have gone crazy for what I consider a common and commodity car.  Being unibody, once rust sets in and repair attempts are made, body alignment can really suffer, and that’s probably the case here.  A truly never rusted nor repaired car, though rare these days, would bring a real premium if someone knew what they were inspecting.

 

Also, with the unibody and associated torque boxes, the power of the 289 can distort the body.  I looked at a number of V8 cars which had deformation to the left of gas filler as you looked at rear panel from the back.  Torque is a powerful thing.

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6 hours ago, trimacar said:

unibody and associated torque boxes

I wonder if these early Mustangs can even be considered a true Unibody? Nothing under the Body carries all the way from the front to the rear except the tunnel and floor pan as I recall. I've seen one of these that slid sideways into a telephone pole and literally broke in half. I had heard of others doing the same thing on the ends of guard rails but was leery until I saw one myself.  

 

 

Edited by Fossil (see edit history)
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Well, the floor, tunnel, side rails, and inner front fender construction are all one unit, and that’s the platform which makes it a unibody, with no separate support frame.

 

The problem is that once something gets damaged, it’s hard to fix.  A front end hit can throw everything out of alignment.  Look under the hood, there are two front end adjustment threaded rods on each inner side of fender well, if one of a pair is showing significantly more threads, car has probably been damaged.  Torque boxes are prone to rust, and difficult to replace.  If the floor pans are rusted, chances are some other structural pieces of the platform are rusty too.

 

They are fun cars, but like any mass produced car, not put out the factory door with the idea they’d last 50 plus years….and built accordingly…

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Edited by trimacar (see edit history)
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12 hours ago, Steve_Mack_CT said:

I like this car except fender fit clearly stood out as well.

I have a survivor 1950 Chrysler that the trunk fit is terrible. I have been all over it looking for anyway to get it squared in the opening but the opening isn't square. Looking at the lower edge of the door opening the problem looks to be with the fender drooping at the nose (?)

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