Revived after sitting for 12yrs

Freshly washed 1997 v6 mustang 5spd.

Purchased back in 2009 for $1700 bucks. She was riddled with dents, had shattered quarter panel windows and was missing bits and pieces of the interior but she was mine. I originally wanted a fox body 5.0 and my pops wanted me to have a 4 banger focus so this is how we met in the middle. Just a regular high schooler wanting to be a cool kid. I remember selling my dirtbike and cutting grass all summer for it. I spent the majority of my time in HS doing body work to fix dents and prep for this paint job as well as pulling pieces from scrap yards to make the interior complete. I’d do just a little bit each day after school at my dad’s friends body shop. By the time she was ready to paint, it was the year Camaro rereleased and I fell in love with that synergy green. I wanted it to be perfect before I drove it daily. I probably only put 200 miles on it before it got parked in my pops garage.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. Dad is remodeling my childhood home and needs the garage space back. He’s been a ford mechanic longer than I’ve been alive and offered to help me revive old Frankenstein here. Dropped a little over 2 grand doing the proper due diligence that you’d expect to do on a car sitting for over a decade as well as fixing some of the pre existing issues we were tracking. Was really cool hearing it crank and come alive after all this time. Shot me back to the past and I thought of people and events that I hadn’t in years.

Still some bits and pieces missing here and there and I have ambition to upgrade the drive train. Recently purchased a 95 gt for $1200 as a potential donor (also considering a supercoupe 3.8 swap, maybe fix the gt or do a coyote swap, maybe keep things stock and just use it as a cruiser, who knows…)

Thanks for reading.