Jonathan, over the years I have read many of your post and the impression I get is that you are condisending to many of the members that ask questions or do things that you deem silly or not correct. It seems that you feel all should know as much as you and do things exactly as you do. This current post follows that form. I would guess that the majority of members on this board are not mechanics and these tractors are their hobby not career. So the whole point of this board is for people who know more to help those that are trying to learn more and not make them feel bad for asking what you might think is a silly question. Now as far as your post about the car. I don't think the question is whether or not my son deserves the car. But for shits and giggles I will answer. A year and a half ago I had emergency open heart surgery and coded on the table and was in a coma for 5 days. I was gone ,done, bye bye but thank god they got me back. Since then this kid has taken over many of the things that I did. He basically cares for our 5 acre property, is a straight A student and works in our store 6 days a week. So I don't care if he deserves it I want him to have it now. Now when I can see him enjoy it and do things with him with it rather than when I am gone. I'm also not sure what your father gave you has anything to do with what you give your children.

Charles

I'm not going to get into an argument about your reasons to give your son the Mustang. He sounds like a grounded young man. My concern is that I don't want to find out that he became another statistic of an inexperienced driver in an high power car. Why do I say that well Mustangs are notorious for trailing throttle over steer. What is Trailing Throttle Over Steer? It's when you lift off the gas with the wheels turned and the weight transfers to the front wheels causing the rear wheels to loose grip and causing the car to go into a spin. It takes time to master the technique to control it. It's not a normal instinct to give the car some gas in a corner when you think your going too fast. This is all part of being able to balance a car with the throttle. Think about your son out some night on a wet road going a little to fast entering a corner, the first thing that he will do is to lift off the gas big time, the nice big V8 is going to say OK and try to slow the rear wheels. Now the weight will go to the fronts and the rears will loose grip and your son will spin off the road. Don't think it can happen, my own know it all daughter who was not going to have anything to do with going to a BMW drivers school (wasn't cool) did exactly what I'm describing and put a Dodge Neon into a telephone pole. Totaled the car, she ended up in the emergency room with a bunch of glass embedded in her arm and wrist. She got lucky, and remember this was only a Neon. She has since done a couple schools and has told me on more that one occasion that the schools have probably saved her from other crashes. Just my 2 cents but I would like to see you give your son a LOW powered car and have him learn the dynamics of car control before you turn the Mustang over. Dead is forever. Please think about what I have said.

Sam I appreciate your concern and there is much more to the story. I have been through multiple racing schools and have been driving high power mustangs for 30 years. I have auto crossed as well as drag raced for years. I am all to aware of the dangers. When I say I am giving him the car it is really more symbolic than anything at this point. He will never have this car out on his own. He has a daily driver. This is strictly a hobby car for shows, now and maybe the track when he is ready which is far in the future. We will share an interest and more waxing and sitting at shows than anything. The 99 has 18,242 miles on it so you can see it is not driven much. I thought about this long and hard. When he started showing interest in my guns I got him a membership to the gun club and we started shooting now his curiosity is gone. The situation is far from me putting a bow on the car and throwing him the keys.

Just wanted to express my concerns. Auto Crossing is a good thing for him to learn some car control (killing a few cones is cheap) and I highly recommend it as a first step, then some driver schools. For what it's worth I did Auto Cross, then DE's, then Time Trials, then I got into teaching and finally Road Racing. Holler if I can help. :beerchug:

Edit: Yours truly playing auto crosser many years ago. :biggrin2:

Edit: list of some of the car clubs that I instructed for.
http://nasane.com/
http://www.scda1.com/
http://www.comscc.org/
http://www.cartct.com/
http://www.ctvalley.org/
http://www.boston-bmwcca.org/
http://www.njbmwcca.org/
http://www.whitemtn-bmwclub.org/
http://www.gvc-bmwcca.org/
http://empirestateregion.com/
http://trackmasters.com/ (senior instructor)

Sounds reasonable to me. It's a known fact time passes slower the faster you go, Special Relativity tell us so :beerchug:

Nice car and a wonderful gift. I agree with Sam.....your son will benifit with on hands experience in the proper venue. There are many road course tracks (and ovals) throughout the country that offer learning programs where you can bring your own ride . Good luck and be safe!

Charles, that's quite the gift for your son. I hope the two of you have many great times with it and your new car.:beerchug:

He sounds like a heck of a good kid. And he did not become that great kid without a great family and great parental input.
Congratulations.

Quite a legacy car to hand down, wow. Congrats

See. An opposing view!
I have no problem with your opinion.
Honestly Tim, I think your being hipocritical. Jumping me for disagreeing..... because you disagree with me.




Thank you for skipping the topic to jump on the "your always mean and condescending" bandwagon.

No, I don't think everyone should do as I do. That's really not my goal at all. If you take the time to study the forum, and not focus on a few instances, you will see in the tech section several write ups I've done and thread after thread and post after post where I have went above and beyond to help people. With nearly 10K posts it's hard to think that I only hang out here to be an ass.

Now, what my dad did "give" me is important. He taught me how to farm. The value of a hard days work. The importance of God. To have integrity. How to lead, be a man, and have ownership in what I do and say. He bought all of us things, at birthdays and Christmas, but outside of that.... nothing really. He did buy me my first gun for my 8th grade graduation.
Now, I worked on the farm, but dad also had a Cub Cadet he let me use to mow yards until I was old enough to drive the big tractors. Now, here's the cool part.... He paid for the fuel and repairs. Learning business came later when I rented my own ground to farm. But while I was young, he let me keep the money I earned. So, Tim if you think this is some "boo hoo my daddy never gave me anything" your wrong. I'm proud of the fact my dad didn't buy me anything..... because I bought what I wanted myself. I even paid my way through college.

That said, I really don't care one way or the other if you give him the car, Charles. And I'm definitely not saying anything about whether your a good or bad parent, or whether your kid is a good kid. Everybody here just totally ignored my point.....

My point is, I think this society as a whole thinks that we should "reward" kids..... for whatever. I'm sure your kid is a good kid. I'm sure he's a GREAT kid.

My opinion is, you should have sold the car and paid for his college. But, maybe your going to do that too, I don't know. I just think there would have been other ways to show how you feel than giving him a $$$ car that you won't even let him drive. To me, that's worse..... I would want to own a car I can't drive. Whatever. I'll bow out of this.