1965 Ford Mustang V8

When Phil King, founder of first-generation Mustang specialist Classic American Restoration Services, was offered a basketcase of car from the US for $1500 he didn’t dare offer it to a customer. But he decided to take on the project with his son, Oliver, to verse him in the ways of rebuilding one of the American V8s.

“I was looking for a car, a convertible, to restore for a client and a contact came up with this one, a 1965 car,” recalls King. “I told him it was so bad that it wasn’t right to offer to the client. You wouldn’t believe the state it was in underneath.

“It hadn’t been on the road since the 1970s or ’80s and looked like it had spent part of its life in a river. I did wonder at times what we’d got ourselves into, but it as a nice car for Oliver to cut his teeth on. We kind of went on a journey together – it presented a great learning curve for him.”

The Mustang, originally a four-speed 289cu manual in champagne beige, was imported in 2012. The restoration took more than two years to complete and today the car is resplendent in candy apple red with a five-litre fuel-injected V8 engine under that long hood.

There’s a four-speed automatic transmission with overdrive and disc brakes all round. Discs were only available on the option list back in the day.

Oliver still owns the car and now helps run the Essex-based business with his father.

Classic American Restoration Services, Waltham Abbey, Essex, Tel: 01992 890969, totalmustang.co.uk