There’s hasn’t been much room in Tommy Bender’s garage lately, what with all the potential crammed inside.

It just looks like a Mustang, a well-worn, sorry-looking silver 1986 GT convertible.

But wait.

This is a Mustang in progress, one moving not just toward shiny chrome and a purring motor, but something bigger.

And to understand that, one has to understand about a kid named Josh Grimes.

Josh loved people and debating issues. He loved music — and he loved cars.

He loved his grandpa, too, which is most likely where he developed his thing for cars.

His grandpa, Larry Wentink of Seward, wiled away a portion of his own youth in his dad’s repair shop at 22nd and O. He started cleaning windows and graduated to shining wheels, then real repair work.

Along the way, he learned to love cars, so it was no surprise that shortly after his 16th birthday in 1958 he joined a new car club: the Rebels Auto Club.

Forty-some years later, Wentink was still a member of the club when he took his 12-year-old grandson to his first meeting.

“He had this interest in cars and I said ‘let’s go,’” Wentink said.

Not long after, Josh was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. It was advanced by the time they found it, but 13-year-old Josh went through a barrage of radiation and chemotherapy, never doubting he would beat it.

He started high school at Southeast, where he got to know a teacher named Tommy Bender.

“We found out we both loved cars,” said Bender, who grew up in racetrack pits, helping his dad build race cars then racing his own.

Bender had Josh in an oral communications class, but the two became friends.

“He’s just one of those kids who was easy to talk to, fun to talk to,” Bender said.

Josh had been bugging his teacher to get a car club going again at Southeast. He’d gotten his own car, a present from his grandpa, a beautiful 1972 Ford LTD.

Then in March, when he was 15,  cancer took him.

“Josh was just such an unbelievable kid,” Wentink said.

He had touched so many that more than 1,000 people crammed into the church to say goodbye, the cars snaking down the street forever on the way to the cemetery.

Spring had turned to summer when Bender got an inspiration, by way of a Cobra Roadster car kit.

He thought the kit would be a great project for his new Southeast High School car club.

The club could build it, then raffle it off, maybe start a scholarship fund or something.

“Then it hit me. That scholarship needs to be in Josh’s name,” Bender said. “It’s just a neat way to remember him.”

Unfortunately, the cost of the car kit went far beyond the fledgling club’s budget. Bender looked for other options and found one on eBay: two ’86 Mustangs, one in parts. He got them for $850, and in November drove to Iowa to pick them up.

And Bender gave up his garage and driveway.

Club members have been working on the Mustang since then, using parts from one to help restore the other. Students fit in times, mostly on weekends, to come to Bender’s garage.

Bender also learned school district policy prohibits raffles, so he started looking elsewhere.

Enter the Rebels Auto Club, which had already made Josh an honorary member and created an annual youth car show in his name.

“They took him under their wing and helped him to grow,” Wentink said.

He’d go to meetings with his grandpa, talk to everybody there. He’d show up at car shows, next to his grandpa’s 1966 Dodge Charger.

At the first youth show in his name, his Ford LTD — license plate JOSHS72 — took home trophies.

Members of the Rebels have helped work out details on the raffle and scholarship fund, which will be maintained by the car club.

Others members offered help and expertise with the Mustang, as have members the Capitol City Ford and Mustang Club.

Wentink said the club hopes to raffle the Mustang and get enough money to buy the Cobra car kit. Once that’s built, the club would raffle it and use the proceeds to establish a self-sustaining scholarship.

“I just think it’s a wonderful, wonderful undertaking,” he said. “There’s so many people who want to honor (Josh).”

Bender said the project has been a good one for his club, which will hold its first show next month. Proceeds from the show will go to the scholarship fund.

Bender agrees with Josh: Southeast needed a car club. There are lots of kids at Southeast interested in cars, like Josh, but the school doesn’t have the shop programs like some of the other high schools, he said. The club can fill that void.

“So they can feel like they belong here, too,” Bender said.

Josh would be happy to know it’s there now, and he’d appreciate the potential in the Mustang.

“I think he would have loved it,” Bender said. “He would have loved the project.”

Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com.