Since buying that first Mustang, Kimble has bought cars from all over the country and shipped refurbished cars to all parts of the world, including Europe and Australia.

He gets them from collectors, junk dealers and private individuals. In some cases, he said, the cars were put out to pasture years ago and have been left to waste away. In other cases, people are tired of their car and want something new, the owner has died and relatives are selling the car or the seller just needs the money, he said.

In addition to buying and selling cars on speculation, Kimble also helps people find the Mustang of their dreams.

“If someone calls and is looking for a specific car, I’ll help them,” he said. “They’re out there . . .you just have to find them.”

If need be, he’ll travel to look at a car before he buys it. And he’s been known to chase down leads of outstanding deals. One such adventure took him and Weich to the Castle Rock area of Colorado where they tried to find a man named Claude who supposedly had a car that Kimble wanted. To aid the search, county officials gave him a list of all the Claudes and Claudettes in the area.

Kimble and Weich never found Claude or the car. But the chase was fun, Kimble said, and he’d do it again if he had the opportunity.

If a customer wants a car refurbished, it is transported to Kimble’s shop in Wisner where he repairs or replaces every part that isn’t in mint condition. The finished product looks just like it did when driven off the showroom floor.

At Kimble’s shop on a recent morning, the battered body of a ’65 Mustang Fastback K-Code HiPo sat balanced on a lift. The car had been shipped in from North Carolina and would be returned to a buyer in South Carolina after Kimble performed his Mustang magic.

“It was in pretty bad shape,” Kimble said of the Mustang.
While many of the parts used to rebuild the Mustang were purchased, Kimble had to make a couple of them.

Raising Mustangs requires Kimble to talk Mustang talk. Consequently, words like K Code, C Code, HiPo and Shelby spill out of his mouth. Just so you know, K and C Code (and other letters of the alphabet) indicate the type of the engine as noted on the vehicle identification number, HiPo stands for high performance, while Shelby stands Carroll Shelby, a Texas race car driver who modified a K Code Mustang into a high-performance vehicle that is now one of the most sought-after cars around.

There’s more Mustang lingo out there: Coupe, Fastback, Mach I, GT and T5.
Made in the United States in the mid-1960s, the T5s were shipped to Germany where, because the Mustang name was already being used, Ford had to give their exports a new name, Kimble said. While the trademark horse insignia remained on the cars, all other Mustang logos were removed and replaced with the word “Ford.”

The cars were popular with servicemen stationed in Germany, and some of them eventually made their way back to the United States. Kimble said experts estimate that fewer than 10 T5 K Code convertibles were produced, and he is fairly sure he has one of the few survivors. In fact, he knows of only two others — one in California and one in Germany.

“The motor makes it rare,” he said.

From the remains of stickers on the bumper, Kimble can tell that his car was once at military bases in Hawaii and Alaska. He wishes, he said, he could peel off the top stickers to see the stickers underneath. Unfortunately, he said, they are too fragile and would fall apart if he tried to remove the top layers. But Kimble does have the original owner’s manual, which is printed in German. And the car’s speedometer is in kilometers instead of miles. While the restored car could bring a significant amount of money, Kimble doesn’t intend to sell it. Instead, he’s looking forward taking the pony for a ride.

“It will be scary to drive in traffic when the guy next to me is paying more attention to the car than the road,” he said.