"One summer afternoon when I was 9 years old, I was out shopping with my grandma and my cousin. My cousin had to go up to an auto body shop in millville, and he was picking up his car. I remember my grandma had to finish doing some errands, and she asked my cousin if he would take me back to Wellsville with him. I remember he wasn't all that excited about taking a 9-year-old and his freshly painted car. We got to the shop, and what sat before me was a beautiful blue Ford Mustang Mach 1. I remember as I sat in the passenger seat, I could barely even see over the dash. My cousin drove back to Wellsville, and I was in love with that car. My absolutely love the rumble of the engine, and the tone of the exhaust. I may have only been 9 years old, but that day a seed was planted in my head. It was the gearhead seed. I knew when I got older, I wanted a Ford Mustang Mach 1.

That was the summer of 1984. My cousin only had the car for a few months, and it was backed into by a loaded dump truck.

My cousin took the car back to my grandparent's house in Wellsville, and there it sat. He built another car, and the Mustang just sat there. Years went by, and it just sat there.

In 2015 it was decided that my grandparents house was going to be sold. I went down to see my cousin and my aunt to see if there was anything I could do to help clean out the property. There sat the Mustang, in the same spot that it had been sitting since the '80s. I asked my cousin if he had any of Grandma and Grandpa's old cars left sitting around, because it would be really cool to restore one. He told me that he had gotten rid of all of them, but if I was interested in restoring a car, he would sell me the Mustang for cheap.

I tried to hide my excitement, as I told him yes. A couple of weeks later, I loaded the Mustang onto my trailer. The expiration date on the license plate was August of 1985. I picked the car up in August of 2015. It had said at my grandparent's house for 30 years.

It had been vandalized, people had stolen parts off of it over the years, and it's sat on the ground, so the floor was rotted right out of it. But I didn't care. I was going to put it back on the road no matter what it took.

I already had two project cars, but I immediately put them up for sale. I took on a few odd jobs, and I started buying parts. It took me a total of 2 years to transform the Mustang back into what it was when I sat in it in 1984 as a 9-year-old boy. Everything on the car was done by me. I didn't outsource anything, except the help of my daughter. It was a genuine thrill the first time I drove it, and it's still a thrill every single time I drive it.

I have taken it to car shows all over Northern Utah and Southern Idaho. It is a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 and it still has the original 351 Cobra Jet engine, and the original 4 speed manual top loader transmission. It is an absolute blast to drive, and it may be the one part of my childhood I can still hold on to."