Like many Baby Boomers, I’m addicted to cars.
This addiction includes lusting after the cars of my youth, plus the cars of my adult years that I couldn’t justify owning when they were new due to the priorities of raising a family.
My first car was a 1967 Mustang coupe, purchased for me by my dad in 1972. It was just a straight 6-cylinder, three-speed manual transmission, but I always had loved Mustangs and I was hooked. The Noble Blue Steed, a friend used to call it.
Three of my cousins owned Mustangs at one time or another, as did one of my uncles.
By 1979, I’d graduated to a new Jeep CJ-7 hardtop as my daily driver, but I also acquired a 1967 Mustang Fastback that year as a hobby car, sending my brother to Schellsburg with my money to check it out and purchase it, because I needed to go to work that night.
It was a 289-cubic-inch V8, stick, nonstock chocolate brown paint with white rocker panel stripes, the ubiquitous slotted dish mag wheels and white letter tires of the time, hood pins and, a black interior with highback front bucket seats from a 1970 Mustang. Most important, it originally was a Georgia car that the current owner only used in good weather. That meant the traditional rust cancer that ate through the bodies of northern Mustangs, including my ’67 coupe, did not affect this car.
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Bullitt,” Steve McQueen drove a 1968 Mustang fastback, the exact same body style as the ’67. The more recent remake of “Gone In 60 Seconds” has a feature car, Eleanor, that is a heavily modified example of that ’67 Mustang fastback body style.
I’d desperately wanted one of these Mustang fastbacks since watching that “Bullitt” movie and seeing one on Jacoby Street as I played basketball on the Maple Park School playground, probably in 1967. That was a red example, with, inexplicably, some of the faux vinyl woodgrain used on station wagons of the time inserted into the concave taillight panel at the rear.
My brother locked up my 1967 Mustang fastback 12 years later and I owned it until 2000, foolishly just about giving it away to a guy I know who turned it into a Shelby clone and now wants $75,000 or so for it.
I can’t really justify the money needed currently to acquire a top-of-the-line Mustang vintage 1965 through 1970, so I’ve readjusted my sights to covet 2005 through 2014 examples, the nostalgic look cars that combine styling cues from 1967 through 1970.
When I first saw the Mustang show car on which the 2005 model would be based, I loved it and felt almost sure it never would make it to production in that form. I was wrong.
I got to drive one of these 2005 nostalgia look Mustangs during a trip to cover Penn State football at Illinois when the airport didn’t have my reserved econobox and upgraded me to a Mustang. That was only the V6, and an automatic, but I loved it, calling my wife to tell her the interior made me feel like I was back sitting in my ’67 fastback.
It took until June 2020 for me to buy one of these 2005 Mustangs, a redfire metallic convertible, V6 automatic, medium parchment leather interior, tan top, with just 41,800 miles at purchase time. It was originally a Florida car, only used in good weather up north, and was being sold because the owner was entering a nursing home.
Still wanting the V8 experience, a few months later in 2020 I picked up a 69,000-mile 2004 GT coupe, the last of the so-called New Edge Mustangs. This has the 4.6 liter modular V8 engine and a five-speed stick. It’s competition orange in color with tinted windows, black leather interior, Bullitt-style wheels, and one-of-a-kind Mustang GT rocker panel decals based on the logo for the Mustang equipment company.
The previous owner was a heavy equipment operator and got a sign shop to produce GT decals to match the Mustang logo examples he had procured.
I’m not done with acquisitions. I still dream of one day owning either a Shelby Mustang, a California Special, or one of the various tuner version Mustangs put out by Saleen or Roush. All of these would be most desirable with the 5.0-liter Coyote engine.
Also, in an affront to my Mustang loyalty, I’ve been doing a serious search for a C4 Corvette, years 1984 through 1996. I’ve looked at plenty, test-driven a few, but can’t find the right car.
Just keep that between us.
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