[POWERSTROKE]

STEVE - You have a great memory, Curt was a Senior in HS when I bought his Lighning. I figured an F-150 was more reliable than his "Hand-me-down" '88 Mustang GT. I'd wanted a Mustang since I was ten yrs old, in 1964-1/2, finally scratched that itch at 34 yrs old. The HS parking lot did not treat the Mustang well, about one new dent a week. Surprisingly his Lightning stayed pretty nice for a long time. He wanted to get a vanity license plate, "FARM TRK" for it, it had many nicknames, some good, some I can't type here.
Curt has a couple NLOC people he keeps touch with. The Internet is a really good way to find people and keep in touch. I keep up with an "Old Body Style Revolution" Face Book page, so many young guys with 302 F150's and they want more HP & MPG. Sadly, you can only have one, or the other, not both. The 300-6 isn't really any better mpg, I ran Curt's Lightning 70 miles each way to work one week while I accumulated parts to replace the waterpump on my F-250's 7.3L PSD, I averaged 14 mph running 70 mph with the Lightning, same as my two F-150 300-6 4WD's did. My F-250 averaged 18-1/2 mpg, one summer it averaged 20 mpg over 10,000 miles, I'd put taller tires on it.
Curt went thru his Mid-Life Crisis two years ago, traded his 2014 RAM 2500 Cummins diesel for a 2018 Mustang GT 6 spd with the Performance Pak #2, which is most of the Shelby GT-350 parts. Gorgeous dark KONA blue metallic. It's SHOCKING how 30 years technical development has improved the Mustang. '88 5.0L was 225 hp, '18 is 460 hp. And it STOPS, which is something the '88 struggled with.