1965 Mustang GT Fastback
Up for sale is a 1965 Mustang GT Fastback. This is an iconic mid-60s muscle car and the first year of the fastback body style. This car is an original factory “A” code, original numbers matching 289 cubic inch, 225 HP V8 engine, and an original numbers matching 4 speed manual transmission. This car was highly optioned with air conditioning, power steering, front disc brakes, pony package interior, rally pac, and rally wheels. The car is registered in PA as an antique. I have been driving it on the weekends for fun and take it to car shows. It has a clean PA title in hand. As you can see, exterior color is vintage burgundy with white and parchment interior. This car gets a crowd no matter where I park and I get a lot of waves as I drive along.
This is an original Massachusetts car. It’s had a few owners all located in Massachusetts, with its most recent owner keeping it for 23 years. He drove it for the first few years in the 80s as his daily driver and then parked it for more than 18 years in his garage. He decided to get the car out to sell a few years ago and spent time and money getting it roadworthy. They repainted the car, drained and replaced the fluids, replaced the distributor and carburetor, replaced the majority of hoses in the engine compartment, replaced the brake lines and brakes, and put on 4 new tires. The car was then put up for sale early in 2016.
I purchased the car from the spring Carlisle car show in 2016 and started going over the car to perform all the final tweaks to make it a reliable driver for weekends and car shows. I had the car aligned, replaced the clutch, rebuilt the transmission, adjusted the shift linkage, replaced the shocks, all the bushings. When we were replacing the shocks we noticed that there was floor damage in the rear wheel wells so we cut out the bad metal and replaced it with all new metal and coated it with undercoating. In the interior, we replaced the carpet and door panels, numerous screws and bolts to original specifications. We hooked up the radio and fixed all the wiring of the interior lights, replaced some of the door moldings and adjusted the doors for better alignment.
This car has a ton of hours and money in it through the semi-restoration and getting it tweaked and fiddled to make it a perfect driver. The paint and interior vinyl are in very good condition but not spotless. The paint does have some imperfections and the interior seats are broken in. However, there is no rust anywhere on the exterior and there are no cracks or rips in the vinyl. It’s an overall very nice, honest, original car. I have a clean title in hand and it is ready to have someone else enjoy it!
Here is a detailed bulleted list of the work and parts changed in the restoration:
Exterior:
Body work and paint completed 2013. Original color and decals
Cut out and replaced rear floor around fender wells and undercoated everything
Replaced necessary door mouldings
Aligned doors for better gaps and fit
Replaced rear exhaust hangers
Mechanical:
Rebuilt transmission
Replaced clutch
New brakes and brake lines
New gas tank and fuel lines
New shocks
New bushings
Lubed entire chassis
New Carburetor
New Distributor
New Spark Plugs
Drained and replaced all fluids
Alignment of front end
Interior:
New door panels with vapor barrier
New carpet and underlayment
New shift boot
New bolts and screws
Fixed wiring on radio to make it operational
Fixed wiring on vanity lights to make them operational
Replaced headlamp switch to make interior dash lights operational with dimmer
New Door lock clear trim rings
Repainted / touched up dash paint and steering column
Still to be completed:
Recharge air/conditioning
Restoration of the original rally pac (I have the original, but haven’t sent it away to be restored yet)
Replace single bowl master cylinder with dual bowl master cylinder for safety. Brakes work fine but it is a single point of failure for braking. (I have this part but haven’t put it on yet)