When the fourth-generation Camaro was killed in 2002, it was the end of an era in America; the end of T-tops. Ever since the 1968 Corvette first offered T-tops as an option, muscle car enthusiasts across the country have ticked off the open-roof-but-not-quite-a-convertible option hundreds of thousands of times. But T-tops have not been offered on a Mustang since 1988, and that was only on hatchbacks, not the notchback.

So how did this very rough, but still salvageable 1987 Mustang GT notchback make it on to eBay with T-tops?

Well, it could just be an “aero conversion” where a Mustang fan takes the front fascia from an ‘87+ Mustang and attaches it to the nose of an old four-eye ‘stang. This is a rather popular conversion, giving us aero-nosed SVO Mustangs and the occasional Notchback with T-tops. Many owners also took their cars, upon receiving them from dealerships, to aftermarket shops like Cars & Concepts to have T-tops installed after the fact. Here’s where it gets confusing though.

The VIN number, when plugged into a Mustang VIN decoder, comes back to a 1987 model…sort of. The year code letter, H, is indeed correct for 1987. However, the 6^th and 7^th numbers should be either 42 or 45 for 1987. So we plugged the VIN in for 1984, and it didn’t match. Curious. It could be a VIN-number swap, the most likely scenario we can think of, unless this is a truly special car that show how wound up left in a field, which is where the seller claims to have found it. There is a very interesting and well-informed thread over at Corral.net right now where everybody is going back and forth, trying to figure out if this even could be a factory Ford car.  The general sentiment seems to be no, not possible.

Then again, stranger things have happened, and customer cars for well-connected buyers are not unheard of. Make no mistake, this car is in rough shape, though the body, engine, and transmission are all in place and apparently run. The interior is completely gutted as well, leaving you with little more than a powertrain and a really rough body to work with. But it could be one of the rarest Mustangs ever made, if it is what the seller claims (and the VIN number sort of justifies.)