The Search Defined... (Pt. 2)

What's the search criteria?

This is the important stuff. For me the breakdown is as follows:

Make: Ford

Model: Mustang

Trim: Fastback

Engine: I6 or V8

Trans: MT Preferred but AT acceptable with V8 Engine

Condition: Time Sensitive
Current Budget: $7500

Now to explain, where I am currently living I don't have the capacity to take on much in the way of a project car. I'm in temporary housing while I wait to transition to a new location for work. Once there I'll have a house with a garage and I can take on a true project. In the mean time, if I'm going to buy a car now it needs to meet certain other criteria. It needs to be sealed, as in, doesn't leak isn't susceptible to weather as it would have to sit outside for three months. It needs to have an intact drivetrain, makes it a lot harder to steal than just a shell that can be easily rolled. And if at all possible, it needs to run. Which if we're honest, at this price point I'm not really going to find.

For the engine, in 1969 and 1970 for was using the same rear end and transmission in all cars with the 250 I6 as they were in the V8 cars, so this makes an I6 to V8 swap pretty affordable (It's still not cheap, but it's better than other years) which means that "cheaper" I6 cars are acceptable options. 

I'd really like to have a manual transmission, but it's hard to find non-restored manual cars. As such the automatic transmission is what you are much more likely to find. But an automatic to manual swap isn't bad in price either, as long as you're willing to do the work yourself. 

In a perfect world, I'd like to find a 1970 Fastback with a 302 and 3spd manual transmission. The odds of this are slim, so I had to have some other options so that my search didn't go on for years!

It's been a week now, and I haven't found too much out here yet. But as good possibilities come up, I'll post them and explain my thoughts on what makes them a good or bad option. Stay tuned!

Image Credit: RustingMuscleCars.Com