Some people grow up in Ford families. Their parents are loyal to the blue oval and when they get old enough, they end up driving an Explorer or an F-150 as their first vehicle. I was raised in what you can call a Ford-adjacent household. My parents primarily drove Asian imports when I was a kid, but my dad did have non-running 1964.5 and 1965 Mustang convertibles that were in desperate need of restoration. Their potential always made me daydream about what it would be like to drive one of them with the top down. That desire for a Mustang only grew in high school thanks to friends that had their own. After college, I had a girlfriend who let me drive her black New Edge GT, which gave me a taste of what I had been curious to try. Several years later, I was fortunate enough to test about 10 various S550 models, including the Shelby GT500, as a freelance journalist. As if it wasn’t clear before, those experiences made it undeniable: I had to get a Mustang.

In September 2022, I finally did. I signed on the dotted line for a 2008 Mustang Bullitt, one of only 5,808 produced for the model year (Ford made an additional 816 for 2009, according to Steeda). Not only did I finally get what I thought was my dream car, but I also got a year-long learning experience, which I’m going to break down into a few stories. In this first part, I’ll share what I should’ve done differently in my pre-purchase process.

Be Calm

I consider myself level-headed about my finances. I always wait for sales and never feel that my money is burning a hole in my pocket. Even when I was coming up with my short-list of potential new cars, I thought I was being realistic. Sure, they weren’t all that practical, but they also weren’t ridiculously expensive. I considered the 2003-2004 Mercury Marauder for its sleek looks and passenger space, but the ones with low prices had too many miles and the less road-beaten ones were more than I cared to spend. Then there was the 2003-2004 Mustang SVT Cobra. Perhaps if the right one would’ve popped up near me, I would’ve enjoyed the rush of 390 supercharged horsepower. The 2003-2004 Mustang Mach 1 was also on the list and offered 305 horsepower and the novelty of a shaker hood scoop. Any serious thought of that immediately vanished when I saw a dealer near me had an exclusively Arizona-owned Dark Highland Green 2008 Bullitt with only 25,000 miles on it. So did my restraint. (More on that later.)  

Think About My Lifestyle

The year before I bought the Bullitt was the first one in nearly a decade I’d had a commute. The previous eight I had worked from home. When I got the Bullitt, I was working in an office approximately an hour away from my house three days a week. My initial excitement over the purchase numbed me to the grind of driving a manual car with a heavy clutch in Phoenix rush-hour traffic. That caught up with me once I had to commute five days a week – some of which hit 115 degrees – in a car with a Dark Charcoal leather interior.

In the lead-up to getting the Bullitt, I envisioned going on rallies with other Mustang owners and taking my fiancé (now wife) down amazing driving roads to romantic destinations. We’ve had our share of those, but we spend most of our weekends in the suburbs or in Scottsdale. Apparently, horses aren’t the only creatures who wear blinders.

Consider Others

I knew when I was getting closer to the final purchase that I was being indulgent, but I felt I had earned the privilege. I had always wanted a Mustang and I was finally going to stop dreaming about it and make it happen.

It wasn’t until later that I realized how selfish I was in making the Bullitt my only car. To mark the 40^th anniversary of the movie “Bullitt,” Ford equipped its commemorative model with a variety of cosmetic and performance upgrades. It offered the GT-based model in only two colors: Dark Highland Green and Black. No matter which one you picked, the Bullitt had a low-key appearance consisting of a pony-less grille, no Ford emblems, and movie car-inspired 18-inch “Euroflange” wheels and exhaust tweaks. According to Ford Performance, in addition to stiffer shocks, springs, and a strut tower brace, Ford’s in-house gearheads installed a Ford Racing Power Upgrade Package that bumped the output of the 4.6-liter V8 up to 315 horsepower and 325 lb-ft of torque.

Ford paired the enhanced engine with a TREMEC five-speed manual gearbox exclusively. The love of my life didn’t know how to drive stick, so if for some reason her car was out of commission, I couldn’t lend her mine. I was still thinking like a single guy, not someone who was going to get married in two months.

Then there were my soon-to-be in-laws. We spent a lot of time with them trying different restaurants, shopping, and going on day trips. They both had cars that offered space for everyone. While technically a four-seater, the Bullitt effectively had no back seats. Even if my fiancé and her mother decided to contort themselves into the back row and suffer the pain of nearly zero legroom, my future father-in-law wouldn’t be comfortable in the shotgun seat for long because he was 6’5”. Every time we all went somewhere together, it wasn’t in my car. My indulgence had become an inconvenience to the people I loved.

That was just the beginning of my lesson. I learned even more when I purchased my first modern collector car, which I’ll cover in the next part, so stay tuned!