04/14/1982

[E2ZZGLX]

On this day April 14 1982 I took delivery of my 82 GT that I was able to order and was a gift from my mom for my 16th birthday...
And on this day April 14 2017 after selling her back in 1995 before my son was born SHE IS COMING HOME!!!!

35 years to the day...

[84StangSVT]

Very cool Skip! Congrats on getting an old friend back. Hopefully she isn't too torn up.

BTW, I will be out in Colorado Springs next week for work, so hopefully we can meet up. NO....I can't bring another car home with me yet. My wife would kill me.

[erratic50]

Wow - awesome. Congratulations!

[4eyedfoxdriver]

That's real cool. Congratulations.

[homer302]

AWESOME! That is fantastic. Promise us the disco-era wheels are a first mod though, haha. J/K, - your car obviously. Those are a throwback though. What a great story to have. Don't let it go this time!

[jlehma13]

Please tell the story on how this came to happen.

[STANGMAN116]

im stoked for ya buddy I can not believe that you found it. it still blows my mind.

[E2ZZGLX]

Please tell the story on how this came to happen.

More or less it was just LUCK! She popped back up on my hometown CL and a couple local FEPers...Tray and Matt saw the post and informed me about an 82 Recaro GT posted...Thanks Guys!!!! I emailed the guy with no luck, being impatient I searched GOOGLE maps of the aprox location and found the house in the pics, drove up north and confirmed it is my car! At that time the current owner contacted me and we made the deal. Seems that he has only had her for a couple of years and as maybe put less than 500 miles on her in that time...lost or no interest in it.

I went home and dug out all the paper work I saved from her and that's when I noticed the my delivery date...the moons and starts must have been perfectly aligned...or just really good luck!

He had picked her up from the guy I sold it to back in 95...as a roller, no front clip, engine/trans and no rear spoiler. After I sold her to Wilber he did a complete 1988 or 89 power train swap on her, correctly as I believe his brother or uncle was Ford dealer tech. He located front clip parts installed a Lincoln 9in with discs that I also sold him at that time and had her back on the road...this was around 97ish and last time I saw this car. Wilber then joined the Navy and car was parked in parents garage and last registered in 2000, so she sat covered in boxed and "stuff" for the next 15yrs.

[shorangerbird]

Awesum. Great story....

[Fearnot]

Congrats! Found and bought back my first car about 25 years ago now. Heard many people say, including my Dad, they wished they had their first car back.

[jlehma13]

That's great. Glad you got it back.

[ddx77]

Very cool, congrats!


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[Capri-Magic]

Amazingly cool story, congratulations!!!!!
Its always good to get your first car back, especially when it had such a special story!
VERY few are that lucky.
Lets see the pics and lets see that baby cooking a wheel!

[webestang]

Very cool!

I agree you are lucky to be able to get your first car back. I'm sure my first car, 71 VW Bug, is long gone.

[wraithracing]

Very Cool car and Very Cool story!

Congrats on getting your GT back!

[dburdyshaw]

I'm happy for you.

[4-barrel Mike]

What Trey said!

Mike

[erratic50]

All one can hope for after 35 years is to now be in better shape than the car!

I almost also got suckered into selling mine back in the early 2000's. Then I did some quick math on what it would cost to keep buying low miles cars for $15K and running up 100K miles and selling them for $2K if I'm lucky.

my math told me I was WAY better off keeping a known stone reliable Mustang GT 5.0L drivetrain under me and forget about the mileage count. In all that approach saved me around $60. Maybe more.

My car gets 23+ leasurly rolling down the freeway. Most of the cars I looked at got around 25 in identical driving conditions. I rented a few I looked at and some got worse even though they had a much smaller 4 banger or V6 engine. That analysis plus the more expensive insurance and plates was the ammo I needed to keep my car. But it would be in better shape if someone else stored it instead of me driving it daily for 18+ years.

[vxr500]

Wow! I still can't get over the fact you go a BRAND NEW 82 GT for you 16th birthday! I think I got a tennis racket that year.

[escogt]

Cool story!!! Congrats on getting her back!!!