Amazon High

19. Foxbody

 I stuck to my plan of not letting myself get distracted and finished first semester with flying colors. The first few days into winter break I did nothing but sleep, watch TV and eat. It's just something you gotta do to get the stress of school out of your system.

I was laying on the couch and flipping through channels when I heard the garage door open. Dad rarely used the garage. It was only for big projects or to store a junker car before he could find a place for it on the lot.

I opened the inside door to the garage and he was rolling up in his old 1984 Foxbody Mustang complete with faded black paint and yellow rally stripes running along either side. He parked and got out, brushing his hands off.

"Did you drive it from the shop?" I asked.

"Oh no, I had it towed. I just rolled it in. She still runs. She needs a lot of work but she still runs. You know working on the first of these that came out in '79, that was my first wrench-turning job. I worked my way up at my mentor's old shop and in '84 I left the place with this beauty and opened Amato Auto." He'd told the story a million times but I knew he loved to tell it, so I always reacted like it was fresh.

"Wow, so this is a pretty important car, huh?"

"Well yeah it's sentimental in a way but also it's the first real investment I ever made. In the 80's people were drivin' around in foxbodys all over the place but they either crashed or sold them or both but your mother, actually, was smart enough to insist I hold onto it. And I did. One of the best decisions I ever made was really your mom's. And, well, as a Christmas present to me and to her, I want to fix it up. I've been putting it off but we hired some new staff at the shop and I figured, if you want to help, we could work on it together? A little winter break project. Only if you want, though. And I mean that. I know you've been goin a mile a minute these last few months so if you just want to hibernate that's well within your rights."

"No, let's do it." I smiled.

A lot of car enthusiasts argue that the foxbody is the best kind of muscle car there is, and my dad took a lot of pride in owning one. Even while it sat at the far end of the lot, broken down and tire-less, he would point it out to savvy customers.

They all gravitate specifically towards the 80's models too, I think because you have to drive it yourself, so you really gotta know what you're doing. And they like that - showing off. And what I mean by driving it yourself is that, well, modern mustangs come with traction and stability control, line lock for burnouts, and an anti-lock braking system. But the good ole 80's foxbodys don't have any of that. Your right foot is traction control, and if you throttle mid-corner you better know how to drift or you'll end up crashing. So it's kind of an art form just being able to drive one without dying.

A lot of the major components needed to be entirely replaced and were so rare that my dad had to buy them wholesale. He and Mickey drove way out to a factory early one morning in dad's old truck and came back at night with a bed full of massive old parts for us to install.

My dad was continuously brewing coffee and the garage fridge was full of cokes and we worked well into the night with the overhead work lights that were basically big old, uncovered lightbulbs shining down on us unforgivingly and dad's favorite rockabilly hits playing on some retro station.

We kept the garage folding door open and a nice, cool, desert winter breeze kept us from sweating under the harsh lights.

We were all invested in the project, because we were all car nuts and all had a fascination and kind of reverence for the model. It was more about sitting back and looking at the work we'd done than wanting to go rip roaring down the highways with it.