penright

Technically, not a new member, joined in 2012, but now looks like I am getting more active. My wife drove the car as a daily driver for a couple of years and now we drive it on special occasions. It is just a V6 and other than a convertible, nothing really special. Except, the story behind it.

My wife has talked about a Mustang Convertible since we were married. All the cars were paid for and I had this idea. Buy her the Mustang, I drive her car, hand down my car to the son and his truck to the daughter. This point becomes important later in the story. Called a fellow church member who owns a Ford dealership, and he had something that fit the bill. Called one of the daughters who worked by the dealership and ask her to take a look at it and see if she thought her mom would like it. Our daughter said, Paul, it's a Mustang convertible, she will like it. Would you mind test drive it and let me know, shes like OK!. And of course, the daughter said yes. So made arrangements with the salesman to buy the car and had another idea to surprise the wife. I told the salesman we would get my wife there with false pretense, just take her by the car and she can not walk by a Mustang Convertible without making a comment. Then just flip her the keys. So called the wife and told here our daughter wanted me to look at a pickup her and her husband were thinking about buying. I said I can meet you at home or you can go if you want. Knowing she will not miss an opportunity to see the kids, I knew she would go. So the 3 of us get in the car and my wife asked, where is this truck. I said, good question, the daughter said Charles Allen Ford. Just as expected, my wife says "Oh they have mustangs there" It was all the daughter and I could do to keep from laughing. So we pull in and she points to THE car and says. Paul, you know, you could buy me that convertible, give Amy the truck, and Randy the car. It is getting harder to hold it in. So we meet the salesman and we start to walk outside, the wife leading the way. She walks right past THE car. The salesman looks at me, hands me the keys, and I get Nancy's attention. Then I toss the keys to her. She looks at the tag on the keys, then looks at the car, the keys, the car, then me, and says "No way". This process is repeated at least 3 times and I finally say, go see it the key fits. The only way I can describe the next part is for you to picture the Miss America pageant. Then picture the girl when she realized she had won and starts fanning her face, just like in Miss Congeniality. Years later, I will never forget that look.

The car has little over 80,000 miles but is starting to show age. So it's not a Cobra, Shelby, or Roush, it is not even a V8. But it is special to us.