How many times have you found yourself gawking in amazement? It doesn’t happen every day, but if you’re observant and have decent vision, it’ll happen. I’m not talking about finding true love here. That’s harder to find than the car keys I lost at Willie Nelson’s Ranch during a 3-day music festival.
2BukChuk says “if you focus on a goal or anything long enough, your mind will find a way to achieve it.” It’s true. I saw it on the internet. My goal is to find interesting cars and great car stories and once I decided to start the DigMyCar.com website, I became even more focused. I’m always looking for vintage, exotic, or unusual vehicles. Like a predatory cat, I’m on the hunt for anything shiny that moves.
If I see something interesting, I’ll stop and talk to the driver about their vehicle, often getting a photo. People are usually friendly, except for the driver of the red Porsche parked at Kroger’s. To be fair, he was in a hurry, probably late for a party, and I was body blocking him from backing out of his parking spot. I managed to get this photo without getting run over, so it was a partial achievement.
Other than Kroger’s, the next best place to check out cars is at car shows. For example, my cousin Sue likes to go to car shows as much as I do. When she came to visit this summer, I found a small car show near Lansing, Michigan that we could attend.
We drove my Honda S2000 since the ’68 Datsun didn’t seem ready for a 50-mile freeway excursion. It stayed home and sulked. Yes, cars have feelings, too. We saw some incredible cars at the show and met several people who had done total restorations on their own. Pretty amazing stuff – like magic, turning their rides from pumpkins into golden chariots. This blog is about one of those magicians.
It was during the walkaround when I found myself gawking in amazement. I don’t know how else to explain it. There was a blazing scarlet red mid ‘60s Mustang coupe shining in the sun. It looked like a brand-new car, right off the show room floor. Until you looked closer at the paint, under the hood, in the interior, the trunk, and underneath… Ford couldn’t have built a car to this standard back then.
I spoke to the owner, Mark, and he agreed to follow up later and provide more information on the car. We had an unofficial interview today so now I can share the rest of his story.
His Mustang was left at a local storage facility in Bath, MI for ten years and the owner abandoned it. The rusty car was sitting outside for months. The year was 1994.
Mark restores cars and motorcycles for himself and others. It happened he was working on a 1966 Mustang and needed a hood. He thought he could use the hood off the old Mustang, so he approached the owners of the storage place. They were glad to get it off the property and said he could have it. It turned out the hood was too rusty to use on the ‘66 Mustang. Now what to do?
Well, Mark did a little research and found out this car was originally built at the Dearborn, MI plant on June 20th, 1964. It was a Deluxe model with a 260 V8, automatic transmission, power steering, and 2-speed wipers. The rusty relic turned out to be a rare year (1964 1/2) and model of the early Mustangs.
Mark made the decision to restore the car himself. First, he pulled the motor and put the body on a home-made rotisserie. He repaired the rusty chassis, rebuilt floor pans and rails, and put new quarter panels on the car. He replaced the motor with a balanced Ford 347 cubic-inch displacement Stroker engine that he built himself. It was dyno tested at 439 ½ hp at 4600 rpm. A lot of horsepower in that Pony!
It has Total Control front end suspension, tubular A-Arms, coil over shocks, and high-performance rack and pinion steering. He installed a C4 automatic transmission with a Gear Vendors overdrive unit and an aluminum driveshaft from Denny’s Driveshaft in New York. For stopping power, the car has Wilwood brakes with 14-inch rotors. Mark machined many parts (crank pulleys, aluminum covers, bolts, and lines) out of stainless steel as they weren’t available at the time.
Cars made 50 years ago weren’t made to the specs we have today. To make everything fit correctly and eliminate gaps, it required additional welding and modifications. Mark doesn’t like to see wires under the hood, so he hid the wires by running them through the frame of the car. The interior was refurbished with a TMI upholstery kit.
Mark painted the exterior of his car with Sikkens single stage urethane paint. No wax has ever been put on the paint job. The wheels are torque thruster wheels, 17 inch on the front and 18 inch on the rear.
The car has a custom Alpine amplified sound system, with two Boston Acoustics subwoofers in the trunk and two sets of triaxial speakers in the cab. It can pump out tunes louder than the DJ at the car show! It also has a DVD player with two monitors just in case you want to have your own drive-in movie show.
Mark completed the entire project in the spring of 1995. Since then, he’s put over 30,000 miles on the car and won multiple trophies at car shows. It still looks like it just came off the showroom floor.
Now he’s a big fan of the Mustang. When asked why, he said “the lines on the Pony Car are beautiful.” He added, “I look for the art in a car or bike before I start to work on ‘em.” When he takes on a new project, he studies it until he sees the “cool factor.” From there he’ll determine the best way to bring that out through the paint and color of metals to be used.
After seeing Mark’s restored car and learning about his meticulous restoration process, you realize how his focus and imagination helped turn a rusted relic into a remarkable work of art on wheels. Keep your eyes peeled on the road this summer and you might find yourself gawking in amazement at Mark’s Pony car, or possibly finding your own dream car, too.
Fear Nada,
2BukChuk