Making the Tough Decisions

            Back in early summer, Bill Jenkins contacted me through the blog and told me about his classic and how his interests in cars stemmed from a 1966 trip to see some recently taken out of service Hertz “rent-a-racers.” In 1969, with the help of his parents, Bill got the car he so desired, a Mustang.

            Since that first one in 1969, Bill has constantly owned a Mustang. The one he contacted me about was literally the car of his dreams. “I always wanted my 1969 Mustang to be in Acapulco blue with black interior and the Ram Air 428 Cobra Jet,” he said. In 2006 he made that dream come true.

            A few weeks later I wrote up his story and posted a number of pictures he’d sent me.  The blog piece goes on to tell the great bit of history that Bill had found with this Mustang. You can check it out to refresh your memory here: http://turnerbudds-carblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/cover-model-comes-home.html.

            Since then Bill and I have swapped a few emails and kept in touch. For me one of the main reasons I started writing this blog was to talk to other car people and hear their stories. Meeting someone like Bill who has had a lifelong passion with cars and has managed to fulfill his dream has been one of the joys of doing this little piece of internet composition.

            In early October Bill dropped me an email and in it he dropped a bomb. The car he so enjoyed, his cover model of a 1969 Mustang 428, was going to be sold. “I have had to face my own question of sorts, hobby car wise, and that is ‘Do car folks always stay that way?’ Maybe there has to be a different phases, especially as we age.” he wrote.

“I write this as I'm very close to doing my own exit from ‘needing to have a hobby car’,” he continued.

After a little more back and forth, Bill agreed to let me follow the process of his selling his classic Mustang. “I'll certainly share how the sales efforts go,” he added in a later email.

Today as I was sitting down to write this initial entry about his sales efforts Bill sent me another email entitled “Sales Journal.” In it he wrote the following which I’ve simply copied here to help you all feel the

“I wrote the following in a moment of thought that perhaps my sales efforts should be preceded with a narrative of how I got here.  I was trying to get across how this is
actually difficult for me and a real turning point in what I have to do and yet still maintain
an interest in such cars,” Bill wrote.

For those of you who have stumbled across my blog you know that I tend to write mostly about car shows and the people who willingly display their classic automobiles for a voyeuristic group of hobbyists.  But I’ve also followed the efforts of a single collector in their efforts to restore their car.

Starting with the next blog entry and periodically continuing until Bill either sells his car or decides to keep it, I’ll be updating you, mostly in Bill’s words, on his efforts to part company with his lifelong dream.