Reviving a Family Heirloom
This Mustang has run in the family for three generations.
A Comedy of (Logistical) Errors
This is a once-Candyapple Red 1968 Mustang Fastback that has been in my family since it was purchased. Over the fifty some-odd years that its seen, the car has changed hands and earned its fair share of patina, but it never left the family. Someone even managed to keep track of the original buildsheet. According to a family myth, it's not really the car that it was supposed to be.
Growing up, my dad could never speak about this car without also mentioning its comic book-like origin story: In late 1967, my grandfather placed an order for a blue Mustang. It was likely a 'plane-jane' one, as my dad would say--drum brakes on all four corners, no air conditioning, and just maybe a V8 if my grandfather had done a good year working his job as a Kimberly Clark papertowel sales rep. Whatever my grandfather ordered, it had not arrived when he returned to the dealership, and I have no idea what became of that car. My grandfather was a famously good negotiator, and since they had failed to deliver his car by Christmas eve the dealership had to make it right. So, the dealsership offered him the Fastback that you see pictured. Or so the legend goes...
The car was to be a gift for my grandmother, and what a hot-ticket item it was. Everyone who could get a ponycar was driving one. My father can still recall going to see the first Mustang that was delivered at his local dealership when it debued just a few years prior. So when he woke up to news that they had a new car on December 24th, 1967, he was thrilled to see what awaited in the garage.
The car that my grandfather came home with is likely a significantly better spec than what he had ordererd. Factory-equipped options include front disc-brakes, in-hood vents & turn signals, and while the car still lacks A/C, it did come with tinted glass. (A/C cars come equipped with tinted cars standard). I'm also particularly fond of its sporty "fastback" roofline that was a recent addition to the Ford lineup at the time. Fastbacks from this era are somewhat rare, though it may be hard to believe by the way their iconic shape is still found on Mustangs made today.
A Daily with a Slick Finish
The car spent the next several years of its life serving as a daily driver for the family. Evidence of its utilitarian history is everywhere. There is a star-shaped chip in the front windshield that was put there by a rock shortly after the car arrived. Gram backed into a pole in parking lot--right about where the "U" in "MUSTANG" is blazened in chrome letters across the rear decklid. It got groceries, took my father to school, and ferried kids to and from playdates. Such was the fate of many V8 American boats of the day. Sure, many were hot-rodded and became pundits of American speed, but you'd have to expect that most of them were probably just normal cars for normal people.
Eventually my grandparents would separate, and the Mustang would move along with my father and his mother from the Seattle, WA area to San Mateo, CA. There it would continue in its service as a runabout, and on at least one occasion picked my father up from cross-country practice at San Mateo High school when was too exhausted to walk home. By this time, if my grandmother was the rightful owner of the car, then my father was certainly it's rightful custodian. Washes and wax jobs were a regular part of the Mustang's regimen, with special care paid to the flat-topped area that runs along each front fender. The paint has visibly worn through more quickly along that plane than than anywhere else on the car, likely from the countless years of hand-buffing he invested.
In the 70's, my father took the car to have new bumpers installed at the local Ford dealership. He had just detailed the car the day before bringing it in for service. The car was glistening. Dad arrived at the dealership around 8:30 the next morning, and the maintenance clerks were already visibly drunk. This did not bother him as much as the parking space that was selected for Gram's '68. They decided that the best place for the car to stay was right next to a Mercury that was being sanded to prep for body work. Yikes.
As my father's interest grew in the red fastback, so too did my grandmother's decline. Perhaps it was a reminder of a time she cared to forget, or perhaps she simply had developed a different taste in cars. My father would continue to be its primary driver and caretaker for some time, in an unofficial capacity. That is, until 1991 when she decided to sell the family Fastback to my father. For a dollar. It would continue its service as a utilitarian sports mobile--it's fastback shape and accomodating package tray were excellent perks for an upright bassist like my father.
It would be impossible to provide, or even track down, a full acount of the lifetime's worth of events and experiences that had happened to this car prior to the 2000's. Among other things, I have it on good authority that:
- Some total stranger decided that she would have a tanning session on the Mustang's hood--without knowing who's car it was--denting a small section.
- The car broke down in a part of the Bay Area that's crawling with chop shops, and had to be towed out.
- It was once rear-ended on the first major snowy day of winter.
- A person snipped the Pony emblem from the front grille, leaving only the squoval-shaped 'corral' which surrounded it.
I actually had a chance to ask my grandfather about the circumstances under which the car was purchased. It turns out that the fantastical story my father had always told us--the one where a better car than was ordered came home with Grandpa--was sort of a mish mash of half-truths. My grandfather had once orded a car from the local Ford dealer that didn't arrive on time. However, the Mustang wasn't the car in that story. Rather, it was a station wagon that he ordered for use on business trips, which had arrived a sedan by mistake.
I must admit, when I heard the corrected version of the story I was initially disappointed--It makes for a much more interesting story when there are twists and turns rolled into the plot. And yet, somehow it makes the car all the more special. My grandfather picked this car, for my grandmother. He decided the car would be the way it is, probably after picturing what it would be like to drive in it with his family; my grandmother, and my father just a boy of nine years old. The very intent with which the car was assembled, at a Ford plant here in the Bay Area of California, is wrapped up in the story of my family. That, is what I call a family heirloom worth hanging onto.