Our tale begins with a young dude and his first Mustang-a car that is his pride and joy, and a rolling extension of his personality. He lavishes attention on his '88 5.0 LX and keeps it looking good. We know it is eye-catching, because it catches the eye of a thief, who promptly steals it. Amazingly, the police recover the LX, only to have it swiped-and recovered-yet again. Now, to those of us afflicted with an irrational love of cars, having one ripped off must be an emotionally sickening event (heck, country songs have been written about the truck version of such atrocities). Having the same one stolen twice would be almost unbearable. Such was the case for Jeff Langdon-the young dude in our story-who, after living through his own personal version of Gone in 60 Seconds from the victim's perspective on two separate occasions, decides to throw in the towel and sell his apparently unlucky steed. That only leads to being taunted by his friends that "once a married man sells his sports car, he will never own another." Nice friends.
Jeff's chance to prove them wrong came awhile later when a buddy decided to sell this '92 Bright Calypso Green coupe. Luckily, Jeff's wife, Candice, turned out to be a "closet" Mustang fan herself, and agreed that the notchback was just too nice to pass up. Three days later, Jeff had his second Mustang.
Fast forward a few years. After personalizing it with some minor underhood and interior dress-ups and winning a few local show trophies, Jeff comes to the disturbing financial conclusion that the '92 would have to be sold to help pay tuition costs for some career-related college courses Candice had enrolled in. This decision, we're sure, was not made without considerable automotive anguish. And, as is only the case when you really don't want to sell something, finding a buyer took only hours-a local collector came by on the first day the 5.0 hit the classifieds.
The purchaser immediately paid for the car in full, but on the rather odd condition that Jeff would store it in his own garage over the winter (Jeff lives in Canada, so that would be a fairly lengthy storage period). He even offered to pay for said storage. Jeff reluctantly agreed, hesitant since, "Every work day, I would have to walk by my pride and joy, which was no longer my pride and joy, en route to my company truck."
But don't rosin up the sympathetic violin bows just yet, because before that long, Canadian chill was over, the Langdons realized their financial situation wasn't quite as dire as originally thought. This led to an interesting spousal conversation on the way back from an indoor car show in Toronto, wherein Candice suggested that Jeff should call the Mustang's new owner and see if he'd sell the Calypso coupe back to them. Quicker than you can say "What a woman!" Jeff took his dear wife's suggestion, acted on it, and was utterly and pleasantly surprised to learn that, not only could he buy his beloved LX back, but also at the same price he'd been paid for it. And just like that, Jeff had his second Mustang, for the second time.
Since then, Jeff has been rewarding this prodigal-son of a notchback with regular doses of detailing and the occasional sip from the horsepower well. Check out the underhood view, where, if it isn't chromed or polished, it's filled, smoothed, and painted to match the Calypso exterior. Overall, his is now one of those Mustangs that attracts detail fanatics more so than power junkies, and shouts "show-car" despite serving in a daily transport role-at least during those few months in the Great White North that are not tainted by ice, snow, or road salt. And though it may be a commuter, it's a 12-second commuter thanks primarily to the effect of a 150-horse dry nitrous kit from NOS.
Our tale ends with a young dude and his second Mustang, a car that is his pride and joy, and a rolling extension of his personality. This one's going nowhere.