Hello everyone. I'm a third generation owner of a 1966 289 San Jose built coupe.
My grandfather originally bought the car in Vacaville CA, drove it two years and then sold it to his oldest son (my uncle). My uncle drove it around northern California until about 1985. During the time he owned it the car was stolen from a parking lot, driven into the Sierra Nevada foothills on a lonely dirt road, and selective parts were removed. It was recovered, rebuilt, and my uncle drove it a few more years until it was passed on to my cousins who promptly blew the engine.
My dad and I received the car in 1986, rebuilt the engine, and drove I it through college and after for quite a few years adding another 100k + miles to it. Since then it has been garage kept mostly in California, for a short time in Texas, and now resides with me in Anchorage, Alaska.
The car is tired, has lived a good life, and now deserves to be restored. I look back now and wish I had been more careful previously with part selection, cleaning, and repainting. Hopefully I'll be able to correct my mistakes over the coming years.
The car is not quite road worthy right now and needs a rearend rebuild. I've been gathering parts so that when the car goes into the local gear shop for the rearend rebuild I can replace the leaf springs, shocks, and rebuild the brakes. I just ordered new drums, shoes, cylinders, and hardware kits from one of the big Mustang parts houses. Although Raybestos parts, I was disappointed to see all of it was manufactured in China. Are there better repro brake parts made in the US anymore? Shipping costs are a problem for me living in AK so I'll probably just need to live with these parts for now.
My goal right now is to get the car back on the road. After the rearend and rear suspension rebuild I need to move to the front suspension and have the carburetor rebuilt/replaced. From there I can decide just how far I want to take the restoration. I'd love to bring the car back to a Concourse Driven category but I don't know if the car is a good candidate for that or how much $ it would really take. More than I would guess probably? Lol. I'm not sure if I want to tackle the restoration or send the car down to the lower 48 to a shop that specializes in early Mustangs.
I'm sure I'll have tons of questions and I appreciate all the work the mods have put into this site.