The Mustang

This car.  Joe thought it would be a great project for him and Adam to do together, so he bought the car about 7 months before Adam turned 16.  They did a little work on it, but not enough to get it ready for him by the time he turned 16.  They did eventually get it running and inspected and street ready, and then Adam started driving it.  For the most part, he loved it.  It was unique and a lot of people liked to come up to him and talk to him about it.  Adam and Joe continued to work on it as he drove it.  Over time, though, the car kept having more and more problems. One time, Adam was driving down Rayford Road (a major road in our area) and the steering wheel fell off! He had to maneuver until he could stop and reattach it. We (read I-Nannette) finally instituted a three strike rule for the car.  It had three more strikes (major strikes) before we would just give up on it and get another car.  It got to where it was so bad that Adam and Michael would roll it out to the middle of the culdesac at 5:40 in the morning when they were getting ready to leave for seminary, and then Adam would pop the hood and Michael would adjust the timing so that they could get it started.  That worked for a few weeks, then it started backfiring every time they tried to start it.  Having a loud car backfire at 5:40 in the morning in a neighborhood is one way to get your neighbors to hate you.  It sounded like shots were being fired.  A few times, Adam couldn't start it.  It was one thing if he couldn't start it and he was home, but a couple of times he couldn't start it and it was at school, and we had to go out late at night when there wasn't as much traffic and tow it home.  Finally, after about 5 strikes, we decided that it wasn't working out.  We ended up having Adam drive the truck and Joe got himself a BMW 8-series.  Adam was a little sad to not have the Mustang, but whenever Joe needed the truck, he got to drive the 8-series, so he was ok with it!