Wow! A real life Maverick/Comet board! I was totally floored when I found this site and equally thrilled to see it's quite active. I guess I'll start with a little background info about my Mavs and myself. My "Maver-nick" (my 3yr old pronunciation) has been in the family since 1970 and was originally purchased by my parents as their first family car (trading in their Impala). It traveled with us everywhere we were stationed while my father was in the Air Force, including a trip to Japan...left side driving on roads built for Datsuns! In 1984 it officially became my first car to drive to school and out on dates in. By then it was quite road weary and had lost all its shine, so I started scraping up every cent I could to give it a new paint job and vinyl top. Finally in '87 I could afford a cheapo Maaco paint job that started peeling within a year! To add insult to injury I accidentally rear-ended another car and crumpled the front bumper and hood (at 5 mph...I was checking out a girl on the sidewalk). Things went downhill from there including being rear-ended myself. By '89 she was in bad shape and I eventually left her with my folks to go off and serve in the Air Force. While deployed to Saudi Arabia in '91 my folks decided to give me a surprise present...a full exterior restoration! When I returned home in '94 she looked like she'd rolled off the showroom floor...what a beauty! Well, it didn't last long. In '95 my father was borrowing her and hit a deer. It took out the front all the way back to the engine...blood and fur everywhere too! Of course he felt terrible about the whole thing so he and I hunted down a '70 parts car, then life sort of stepped in. I got married, had a daughter...the whole adult thing. In the meanwhile the old girl and her donor have been sitting down at my folk’s house in their back drive port. Well, that brings me up to today. For some reason I just decided to start looking for some parts online and eventually ended up here. After seeing all the great originals and restorations I've made the decision to tow the two girls up here to Denver and start seeing what I can do. I'm pretty much a novice but I feel I have to do this with my own two hands...she's like a family member! So, you'll probably see me posting questions somewhere down the line. My plan is to restore the family Mav to its original factory condition using the parts car. The second project will be to convert the parts car into a custom, non-stock '70-'71 Grabber since it doesn't have an engine...might as well dream big. I've enclosed some links to the '92 pictures of the family Mav "BtD" (Before the Deer). Post-deer pictures would make you cry so I'll refrain from putting those up. http://home.comcast.net/~coyote10/maverick1.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~coyote10/maverick2.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~coyote10/maverick3.jpg Oh, one last comment, after 35 years and 250,000+ miles this girl was still running on her original engine and transmission build ("three on the tree" baby!) without skipping a beat! Way to go Ford!
aboard. By looking at the pics you've got a really nice clean start (as long as it's still all together after all those years, minus the deer incident). Feel free to post any questions you have at anytime, there are lot of knowledgeable people here that can answer pretty much any question you throw them. Good luck with the resto's and keep us posted.
Mike, welcome to the board! I love stories like your's, where the car has been in the family all these years. Glad to see it is still in the family, I am sure there are a lot of great memories there.
Hi Mike. Welcome to the board. She sure does look like a nice Maverick. It's always great to hear about a Maverick that has been in the same family all it's life. Even with all it's past boo-boos, it seems like it found a great home. Good to have you here. BTW, congrats on being our 3000th member!
Rich Maverick Welcome Mike! That was a great story! You have a lot of Maverick in your blood! You have come to the right place, I'm sure you will be happy here. You have a very nice Maverick that has a rich history that you cannot buy on any other car! Joe
Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! Yup, her and I have quite a history together. You'll never believe what my parents bought to replace her when she was handed down to me...a Dodge Aries K! Ugh! I used to give them so much grief about it..."How's the contour challenged goat driving?" Needless to say, it never saw 100K while the Mav kept on goin'. I'm member #3000? Awesome. Do I win a Grabber Hood or something?
Hi, Mike. Welcome to the board. That's a great story. Good luck in your resto plans. I like the color combo. Was that the original paint color? Seth in NC
Yeah Seth, it's pretty close to the original scheme. The paint is a bit lighter since the shop had trouble locating the '70 paint codes back in '91. I believe they used a similar Ford color but if you look under the hood or trunk lid you can tell the original color was a shade darker. With all the resources on the internet these days I should be able to find it for the next repaint. The vinyl top, however, is a perfect match. I'll be heading down to my folks within the month and I'll snap some photos of its current condition...it ain't pretty. Mike P.S. The original interior was burnt orange/brown/gold...or something like that. The seats were upholstered with that woven threading which tore up real easily. It was definitely Austin Powers inside...Yeah baby! I also remember we had an after market AC unit that would bring the poor I6 to it's knees and leak Freon on the floor!
Oh yeah and seat belts weren't standard. I still have a scar under my right eye from when my mother had to slam the brakes and I flew into the dash. After that I think she made my father go out and get some lap belts from a later model at the junk yard.
Great looking car and a great intro to the board! There's tons o' info on this site. Whatever it is you need, you'll find through the 'search' button or one of the very nice and knowledgabable guys will help you out. Thanks for the story and the pics. ... and Welcome!
