“I wanted to be able to spend legitimate time with him,” Bledsoe said. “Sixteen-year-olds are hard to communicate with, and he was even harder to communicate with. We thought he was suffering from depression. … When he was 16, I thought this would cheer him up.”
In fact, it did cheer him up, but Patrick’s suffering overpowered and it was nothing that medical care or a muscle car could repair. Patrick ended up taking his own life in 2000. With a heavy heart, Paul was going to get the Mustang ready for sale.
“My wife kept saying it’s a reminder of sad times,” he said. “I said, ‘No, to me it’s a reminder of his best times. When he was the happiest was when he was messing with the car, when he was driving it, with his friends.’
“I don’t know what happened. I just decided I wanted to do this as a tribute. I started taking it apart.”
Paul’s hard work definitely paid off. “Patrick’s Dream” became a nationally honored Show Car.
The Hatch started out gray, then was painted red, but now is a deep pearly blue. The beautiful engine compartment shines of chrome and polished stainless steel. A looker it may be, but believe that it can certainly be heard to those nearby. The 250-horsepower engine has enough power to put you back in your seat and has a nice, deep rumble that a true muscle car enthusiast would definitely appreciate. Paul has only put 700 miles on the rebuilt engine in the past four years. When traveling to national shows, he loads her up on a trailer and heads off to big Mustang shows in Oklahoma, Alabama and Florida collecting trophies along the way. He is not saying that he doesn’t have fun driving it, because that is certainly not the case.
“It runs,” he said. “It’ll throw your head back in the seat when you go from first to second gear.”
Bledsoe is a maintenance and engineering manager for Noranda Alumina in Gramercy. When he was younger, his father gave him a 1950 Ford when Bledsoe was just a teenager, and he rebuilt it and drove it for many years.
Bledsoe had worked on Patrick’s Dream for over four years. The only original parts that remain of it are the body and the dashboard. Parts that he had replaced include the engine, transmission, front end, back end, side skirts, hood, wiring, suspension, steering and brakes. Bledsoe says that he has pitched out about $30,000 and countless hours into it with his son, Stuart, in their garage in Prairieville. Well, everything except for the paint. That credit goes to Lionel Petit. The color had to be perfect and he finally located it on a blue Porsche sitting on a lot at a local dealer. The salesman, however, was not going to give up the paint code easily.
“He looked at me real serious and said, ‘Sir, do you see all that glass over there that you can’t see through? My boss is on the other side of that glass, and he told me that if I don’t get a sale pretty soon he’s going to fire me,’” Bledsoe said.
“I said, ‘What will he do if you talk me into a test drive?’
“‘He won’t fire me then, either!’
“‘Well, I need a test drive.’ … It took me about 45 minutes to get that paint code, but I was patient enough.”
Bledsoe was finally satisfied after four long years and lots of patience. After the car returned from the paint shop, he worked on the car as the plastic skirting remained in the dining room for several months.
The results have definitely paid off. This car has a “wow factor” that has been quite the hit at Mustang shows around the country and has been featured in the Mustang Times, the official publication of the Mustang Club of America.
The project is almost finished. Bledsoe says he may re-do the interior. All except his custom floor mats which appropriately read “Patrick’s Dream”.
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