Now I had completed high school and was ready to move on to college.  And of course my trusty Mustang accompanied me.  I chose to go to school at a small college located in the western part of Maryland.  That part of Maryland gets a fair bit of snow during the winter.  Typically it starts sometime in October and snow remains on the ground until Spring.  So I added a pair of snow tires to the back of the car and survived several winters that way.  During this time I pretty much drove the car as is, only fixing any safety related issues that came up.  The car was subjected to plenty of snow, salt, and other chemicals they used to treat the roads.  Needless to say the car took quite a beating during those years.  Big block Mustangs probably aren’t most people’s first choice for a winter beater.  But it served me well during those years and I learned how to drive that car in the snow pretty well.

Every Spring after the snow started melting and the campus roads were clear, I used to see a Boss 429 Mustang driving along the main road through campus.  I didn’t see it very often as the owner only brought it out on nice sunny days.  After seeing that car several times over the next few years I eventually stumbled on where it was kept.  One day I was walking through the town and I saw the door open up on a small white one car garage.  I head a car start up inside the garage.  The exhaust note sounded pretty healthy so I kept watching.  A car slowly backed out of that garage.  It was the Boss 429 Mustang I had been watching over the past several years.  It sat in the driveway and idled as the owner allowed it to warm up while he closed the garage door.  The exhaust note sounded pretty amazing.  Those engines had a sound all their own and you didn’t get to hear one very often, even back then.  That was in the mid 1970s and was the only time I saw that particular car going in and out of that garage.  I sometimes wonder whether that garage is still there and still houses that particular Mustang or not.  One of these days I may make the trip (about 150 miles) to look and see.