In 1968 I was eighteen and bought my first car, a '67 Mustang coupe, with two summers of pumping gas. In 1972 I sold it to pay for an engagement ring for a girl named Edith. She said yes, she's still wearing the ring, and I have never once been sorry about the trade. But I never stopped looking at Mustangs, either. Edith knew it. Every time one went by she'd say "there goes your car" before I could.

I'm Robert Ward, Bob to everybody, and I'm 49. I've been a millwright at one of the plants in Flint since 1972, we live just outside Flint, Edith drives a school bus, and our son Adam is a senior this fall. For twenty-five years the second Mustang was always going to be next year.

In October 1996 a widow near Owosso put an ad in the paper. Her husband had parked his '67 coupe in their old dairy barn in 1981 and never got back to it. I drove out on Saturday the 19th and there it was: four flat tires, dust and bird droppings all over the roof, rust starting along the bottom of the quarters, and the Candyapple Red faded to a chalky pink. I paid her $1,200 and we pulled it out into the daylight. She asked me to send her a picture when it was done. I have.

July 19, 1997. Engine out. An engine hoist borrowed from a buddy at work, and one hot Saturday. The old 289 came out dripping everything it had onto the cardboard, and I'd guess about half of the grease on me was from 1981.

November 22, 1997. Down to the shell. Up on jack stands, with every nut and bolt bagged and marked on the shelves. When the carpet came up you could see the garage floor through the floor pans. That's when you know what you bought.

March 14, 1998. New floor pans. I bought a little wire-feed welder for the job and practiced on scrap all winter. I've done maintenance welding for most of my working life, but sheet metal this thin is a different animal. Both pans in, and Edith got her thumb in the picture.

September 26, 1998. Primer. All one color for the first time in years, if gray counts. Adam and I pushed it out into the driveway just to look at it in the daylight. He's laughing because I'd just told him this was the easy part.

February 20, 1999. Paint. Home from a body shop in Flint, in Candyapple Red, the color it left the factory in. I don't paint cars, and I know my limits. No glass or chrome yet and paper taped over everything, but look at it. The white spot is the flash. This was the first picture off the floppy-disk camera Edith and Adam gave me for Christmas.

May 15, 1999. The 289 goes back in. Rebuilt by a machine shop in Flint and painted Ford blue. Adam guided it and I worked the hoist (same buddy, same hoist), with fender covers on and nobody breathing. It went in the first try, which never happens.

July 4, 1999. First drive. Twenty-seven years after I sold the first one, I backed the second one out of the driveway with Edith in the passenger seat. We went around the block, then around it again, then out for ice cream. She said "there goes your car." I said it isn't going anywhere.

August 14, 1999. First car show, in the park at Shiloh Mills. That's the after picture up top. No trophy, and I didn't care a bit. Edith brought the lemonade, and Adam leaned on the fender all day explaining the car to strangers like he built it himself, which he about half did. A man from Saginaw asked if I'd sell it. No, sir.

The Woodward Dream Cruise next August, if I can talk Edith into a day of sitting in traffic on purpose. And Adam has been hinting about the prom this spring, which we'll talk about.