Jumping In Blind: The Story of My '73

After reading all of the great build threads on here I have gotten inspired to start my own, so here it goes....
Last October I was scrolling through Craigslist looking for a decent car for under $3000. As this was going to be my first car, and with no prior knowledge of engine tech, I needed something with a solid drive train and an engine that would be easy to work on. Also because this was my first car it needed to have a certain nostalgia that could match, or even beat, my dads 1969 Cougar. (His first car).
So the search began... I started by checking out different types of engines and transmissions and ended up with a 302 with a C4 transmission. Good. Now for the car. I searched for dozens of classic cars with this configuration, Mustangs, Cougars, Cyclones, all of which were out of my price range. Then one day as I was scrolling through Craigslist there was an ad for an old maverick mixed in with all the mustang ads. Not having a picture, I put "Ford Maverick" into the search bar on craigslist and found this... A 1973 Maverick Grabber w/ a 302 and a C4 automatic. Two weeks and $2,000 later, on October 24th, 2010 it was mine.

 

Now, a little bit about the car. Parts of it are stock, but there have been a lot of changes in its 38 year lifespan. First off both the engine and transmission have been rebuilt. The car started out with a 3 speed but was later converted to a C4. Anyways the engine has several upgrades including an Edelbrock performer 289 intake manifold, and an edelbrock 1405 4 barrel carb. I'm sure that there are upgraded parts internally, but I haven't opened up the engine to find out. As you may of noticed, the car sits on 4 wonderful Cragar SST rims. but, as i dig deeper into the layers of the car I can tell you that the hood has been replaced, and somebody did a really poor job of filling in the rusty spots with bondo and fiberglass. Finally the guy at the muffler shop tells me that at one point the car had a nice custom exhaust, but thanks to Colorado winters the exhaust isn't so nice anymore. Overall its pretty much what i wanted, a decent starting point with a solid drive train.

 

That's a great start, good looking car..........

 

Nice car!
And welcome aboard! :Handshake

 

Nice car! I remember seeing it on Craigslist awhile back.

 

Don't think any of use missed that it has a 71-72 Grabber hood. Nice bonus and worth about 25% of what you paid for the car Also it looks like you have 74 and newer front bumper extentions instead of the 73 lower valance that should be on there. Thats why it looks like the bumper is sticking out weird, well besides it being bent. If you don't know already the 73 bumper and valance are a year of their own and hard to find. You may just want to do a small bumper swap on the front. It may be more expensive but probably easier to get the parts.

 

welcome! nice start!

 

The car now has a 73 valence. To my knowledge it was put on several days before I bought it, after that picture was taken.
An there will be a bumper swap in the future, im just kinda short on cash right now.

 

So the day after I got the car home we took a trip down to the DMV and had the car registered in my name (and also got those cool collector car plates). The rest of the day was spent driving it all over town as I was completely amazed at how well it drove for being almost 40 years old. The next morning I woke up and got ready for school. As I walked outside I found this. My heart sank. I mean why would somebody do such a horrendous thing? And so began the search for a new piece of glass. I managed to find a piece at the local pull and pay, so the next day I went out with some basic hand tools and retrieved a piece of glass from a 1971. Little did I know at the time, the back glass for a 2 and 4 door are slightly different. The guy at the pull and pay told me it would fit, he also told me that there were no returns on glass... So the search continued....
Finally after going nearly having to order one from New York, I talked to this guy who told me about this yard 45 min. away. when i finally made it out there i was amazed...

 

a yard filled with goodies

 

Mavericks, Comets, Mustangs, Pintos, Galaxies, you name it, they got it.
Heres a link: http://marc-mart.net/mymustangstore/index.html

 

Welcome and nice car keep us posted with your progress

 

That's a shame about the rear window - do you have any idea as to who might have done it?

 

Awesome yard! I see a Comet with a tire on the trunk in that first pic! Yards like that are getting hard to find.

 

The new leaf springs that I ordered came in the mail today along with a new set of shackles. Ill install them as soon as it gets a little bit warmer outside.