Genuinely, I think the toughest part that these two had in fixing up this ‘69 Mach 1 was not getting hantavirus. This car was filled with shit, literally. I assume the poop was why such a desirable car had sat in a Colorado junkyard all these years.
Again, the 1969 Mach 1 is one of the most desirable Mustangs ever made. if you like the more macho grunty side of the Mustang universe (my personal taste is more towards four-eyed pride), its styling, power and nostalgia is just about at the top of the list.
So it was a bit of a surprise that the Roadkill pair found one such car rotting away in a Colorado junkyard, and so too was it surprising that once the car got a new carb and a new distributor it coughed into life. From there it got a new gas tank, a new master cylinder, new brake calipers, wheels, tires and a lot of new fluids. A little tuning from there and the excrement-filled ‘Disgustang’ worked as it should.
But in the midst of all of that was nearly four decades of literal shit filling the inside of the car. Finnegan and Freiburger at first tried to vacuum out all the petrified turds, but that quickly started looking pointless. The carpet and interior came out, and the whole inside of the car got powerwashed.
It’s a reminder that saving a car from the junkyard isn’t always impossible like you might imagine, but there’s some genuine health risks of all the crap in them that you shouldn’t ignore.
Hantavirus can be fatal, and you can get it from touching or breathing in rodent shit or urine. Stay safe, don’t sit in that mud, and be prepared to handle the worst.