Looking forward: A “Mustanger” in the making

Last year, I wrote an entry titled “Looking back” in which I talked about my first Mustang. Now it’s time to write the companion entry.

I’m pretty paranoid about protecting the interior of my car from further wear. Conflicting with that is a growing desire to share the Mustang experience with my young son. I haven’t approached this lightly. In early 2005 I started preparing for his first ride. I was mainly concerned about the impact of a car seat strapped to my nice leather rear seat. It is 12 years old and I worry about the durability of it. The solution came to me while I had the rear seat out to fix my top mechanism. I decided to get a second rear seat to use with the car seat and not be concerned about what might happen to it.

I monitored ebay for a while and finally settled on and acquired a white leather rear seat from a 1990 Limited Edition convertible. It is in really nice condition. The only thing is that the color of it is slightly different from my original one. The white has a more yellow tinge to it while my original looks gray in comparison. In the picture, my original is on the left. I gave it a good cleaning and installed it in the car. It looks pretty good and the color difference is not that noticeable. It will be sufficient even when I show the car.

In the summer of 2005, we celebrated the little guy’s 1st birthday. What better way to celebrate it than with his first “pony ride” so we took him out in the Mustang. I can’t say that he really enjoyed it. The wind was a bit much for him since the best way to install the seat was in a forward facing configuration given the small amount of space in the rear. At very low parking lot speed he seemed to find it least irritating. At higher speeds he just kept looking to one side or the other since looking forward was too windy.

Since his first ride he has been back in the Mustang once. The second time was with the top up. Since then he has also developed an obsession with cars. It was one of his first words and continues to be used regularly by him. All of his favorite toys are cars especially an electronic Mustang that his grandfather gave him. It is an ’05 Mustang that goes in forward and reverse and makes a variety of sounds. He even carries it around with him. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. Like father like son.