I grew up on a steady diet of Nick at Nite, and later TV Land, watching shows like I Dream of Jeannie, The Munsters, and Charlie’s Angels. When I got to be around 12 it came time for me to begin looking for my first car. That was something of a tradition in our family, you got your first car at a young age, and to get an older car, one that needed work, and there you could learn the ins and outs of a car. For some reason I instantly fell in love with the 1976 Ford Mustang II Cobra II that Farrah Fawcett’s character, Jill, drove in Charle’s Angels, and I refused to get anything else.

My dad and I spent a good amount of time hunting for one, pouring over issues of Auto Trader weekend after weekend. Then one day while driving to an antique show I spied one, behind bushes off the side of the road. I told my dad and he didn’t believe me, but said we could stop on the way home from the show. After a day of shopping he pulled over and there it was, a Ford Cobra II in the same paint scheme as Jill’s. We knocked on the door and after some back and forth we bought it.

For several years my dad and I worked on the car, redoing portions of the interior, going to wrecking yards for missing pieces. I even pulled out an 8-track player to put inside. I patched rust spots with Bondo, and once I secured my learner’s permit began learn to drive stick. I had grown up with a go-cart so driving itself was nothing new. In high school I lived a block away from my high school, no need for a car, so my car remained at my dad’s. In college I could bike nearly everywhere I needed to, but as my college was in the same town where my dad lived, we continued working on the car, later swapping out the engine. I also began collecting ephemera related to the car, and vintage Charlie’s Angels toys. Once I graduated college and got married, Patrick and I moved into an apartment in Portland, one with terrible parking, and a brutal hill at the freeway exit. It wasn’t the place for my little Cobra II. Then ten years ago Patrick and I moved to California, with a brand new Ford, we settled into an apartment with space for one car. So my Charlie’s Angels dreams remained on hold, staying in storage at my dad’s. Eventually we bought our house, and I wanted nothing more than to finally bring my car home. Little did I know the Oregon weather had not been friendly, and took a toll on the car.

Soon another father and his 13 year old daughter knocked on my dad’s door, much like he and I had done. She was in love with the car. The father was a Mustang guy with his own shop, and it would be the perfect project for them. The decision was made to sell the car to them. My dad agreed to purchase another one if I wanted, and soon we found one in spectacular condition in Pennsylvania and we had it shipped.

I have dubbed her Jill, named after Farrah’s character, and she’s nearly perfect on the exterior and interior, but under the hood is another story. Hailing of Pennsylvania with their lax emissions laws, the car is missing everything I would need to pass smog here in California. I missed the cutoff for not having to do smog by one year! So I’m left with a few options to get her up to snuff, and she’s been a large part of my focus as of late, especially as I need to get reacquainted with driving a manual transmission car. I hope to get things sorted out in the coming year, and get her a proper photo shoot!

Ironically, in one month we had ended up with two new Mustangs, as amid the purchasing of the Cobra II, we traded in our 2014 Fusion and purchased a brand new Mustang Mach-E. We thrilled to finally have an electric car, and as the car is green, we named it Frank after Steve McQueen’s character in Bullitt.