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Tammy Thompson Journey


Our Mustang story started when my husband, Nate, and I met. He owned a 2002 Blue Mustang, that was pretty nice and I really knew NOTHING about cars!! Even when my cousin asked, “what kind of Mustang does Nate have,” all I could say at the time was, “it’s blue.” I knew Nate loved his mustang and cars, but it really wasn’t my thing. We went to MANY car shows and spent MANY anniversaries at Fun Ford Weekend in Richmond, VA. I would tease Nate ALL the time I wanted to learn to drive his car. LEARN is the key word there. I knew nothing about driving a standard car with a stick shift. All he would say was, “this car has too much power for you to learn on.” I really never had interest in it—just liked teasing him and seeing his face when I asked.




Nate was so excited to get a super charger for it and two weeks later on his way to Mississippi he called to tell me he blew up the engine, and he was heartbroken. We had our ups and downs with that car. We even had started a small car club at Langley, but I never was to into the “car thing” then. He then was heading off to his first deploy-ment and our son Austin was just turning one. Nate made me prom-ise that if anything happened to him, that I would give Austin the car when he turned 16. All I thought of was, “what the heck am I going to do with this car for the next 15 years??” Well the funny part of this was, right after he came back from the deployment he decided that it was breaking down too much and not any fun to have anymore so he sold it.

So over the next decade or so, we both had a number of fun cars, one of them being my 6 speed Mini Cooper S. Nate had taught me, shortly after he sold the 2002 Mustang, how to drive a stick shift and about two and a half years ago he started to get that itch again to have another Mustang. All I kept thinking about were weekends in parking lots and lost nights in the garage and broken engines, saying to myself, “oh no, not again!! I wasn’t looking forward to it. BUT Nate promised me he wasn’t going to go crazy this time and he was buying this for us to have fun in. I will be honest, I couldn’t see how this was going to be a family fun thing.


So Late fall of 2015 during really bad flooding and storms, Nate and his friend headed up to Buda, TX to look at a red 2012 Mustang Shelby. He bought her, and she was named Ginger. She hasn’t been an easy car to love and she’s had her issues from the start. But Nate knew this time around that I knew how to drive this car. I teased him a lot to drive her, but he still wasn’t in a hurry to let that happen. It wasn’t until spring of 2016 that I saw how this car could be a fun family experience for us.



We had been living here in San Antonio for a few years, but really hadn’t met a lot of people or had a lot of friends with the same interests yet. So one Friday night we decided to go to Biff Buzby’s Burgers. Nate said he had heard about a car meet-up that was every week on Friday nights. Reluctant to go, but wanting to get out of the house, we headed on out to Biff’s. This was a HUGE changing point for us both. We pulled in and parked next to a look-alike of Ginger. It was Paul Woeppel’s red and white Shelby who had just had hail damage. That started up a conversation with Paul and Traci (Paul’s girlfriend) right away. During that same night we met a lot of others with mustangs and started some amazing friendships. When we left Biff’s that night, on the way home Nate and I were talking and he asked what I thought about this and being part of a club again. I told him they were all so nice, but I didn’t want to get wrapped up into this “car thing” again. I was honest and told him I didn’t want to sit in parking lot after parking lot every week-end. I didn’t enjoy it the first time and didn’t want to do it again. Nate agreed with me and left all the planning up to me of what we did or didn’t do with our new car friends. WELL, that was two years ago this coming Memorial Day weekend! If you know us, you can see how that weekend changed our lives completely. Never in my wildest dreams, did I EVER guess I would be the car person I have become!!

After a few more trips to Biff’s, we met more and more of you all and started to realize the “family” we had made. I was booking the calendar every weekend with events and finding myself sitting in a parking lots again. This time around, I didn’t mind it at all because I had made some really great friends and was having so much fun with it. I was still bugging Nate to drive his car and he was still giving me a hard time and didn’t want me to drive it. It took lots of me bugging him and lots of pressure from all our friends along the way, but slowly he started to let me drive Ginger. The more I drove her the more I really liked it. Nate would tease me that I was getting into this “car thing” and knowing a little more and liking a little more as time went on. I would say something about a mustang and shock myself about how much I knew. To this day I am still saying, “this is not me, I am not a car chick…I am a girly girl that likes pink and shiny stuff….who is this person I have become??”

I really never wanted a mustang, I just knew I wanted a convertible of some kind next. But since Nate let me drive Ginger the more the Mustang started to grow on me. Sometime last year I had decided that the next car I would buy would be a convertible Mustang. I was pretty sure I wanted a white California Special convertible. I also knew I wanted it to be a 2016 to 2018 because of the cooling seats. But I wasn’t in a huge hurry, so I just kept dreaming about it. I kept shocking Nate when I started pointing out when I would see a California Special or other Mustangs that would have certain things or not have it. I think he realized I wanted it more than I even noticed. So in late December Nate told me that were going to start looking to get me one. I knew if we were going to start looking now, I would have to give and take on some of my wants, BUT the convertible was not one of them.


Nate found a Grabber Blue one for sale. I wasn’t really thrilled with the color—it wasn’t even pick number 2 or 3 for me of colors, but I was still pretty excited to go look at it. After the test drive in the rain (couldn’t even take the top down), I loved how it felt. I decided on the spot, Grabber Blue would be my color of choice. I knew driving her home I was going to need to get her some stripes because she was just to plain. Before too long I had my wish list of what I wanted for her and realized I have become that car girl I didn’t think I was. I have only had her a few months, and named her “Kinky.”



I have been enjoying showing her off and driving her down the road. Nate has also found that he created a monster with this whole thing. He is seeing that I have to have my car clean and shiny every weekend to go and sit in those same parking lots that I didn’t want to sit in. Not only do I want to take my car to these shows, my competitive side comes out and I HAVE to win!! That’s where my perfectionist and OCD come in to play. But I am also seeing how this is a family event for us and how it’s brought us together. It takes all three of us, Nate, Austin and I to work together as a team to clean our cars for these car shows. We are so grateful for our Mustang family and friends we have made along the way here in San Antonio and how it’s changed our lives these last three years. We look forward to more fellowship and fun in the years to come!!
Tammy Thompson’s Journey - continued: