Driven by a Legend They Call Mustang
There’s a stampede headed toward Anaheim. Even as this morning’s newspaper is being read, more than 200 Mustangs are thundering across the desert that separates Los Angeles from Nevada.
Don’t bother phoning in a report to the Department of Animal Regulation; this is a different sort of Mustang. A Ford Mustang, to be precise. And more than 1,000 of them, old and new, from as far west as Hawaii and as far east as Europe, will be on hand Sunday to celebrate the Mustang’s 25th birthday during the fourth annual Fabulous Fords Forever event at Knott’s Berry Farm.
The gathering is co-sponsored by the Ford Motor Co. and the Western Region Ford Car Club Council, which claims more than 155 clubs and 100,000 members in California alone. The event, which includes other Fords besides the Mustang, drew more than 60,000 spectators and 1,500 vehicles last year. This year more than 2,000 vehicles are expected. Sponsors believe the event to be the largest vintage car show in the world.
Ford Retrospective
Displays will range from a 1903 Model A runabout, which was Ford’s first car, to one of the earliest production models of the Mustang, built in mid-1964. Also included will be a customized Mustang created for Frank Sinatra, a pair of Mustangs once owned by Sonny and Cher, a variety of Ford military vehicles and a fashion show featuring costumes of the time span that the cars represent.
And just to make sure the connection between this event and the new Mustang isn’t lost, 130 brand-new 1989 Mustangs will be parked in the shape of a giant “25.”
Presiding over the festivities will be Ford Motor Co. Chairman Donald Petersen, three-time World Formula 1 driving champion Jackie Stewart, actress-pitchwoman Lindsay Wagner (she walks through a Ford Probe in the TV commercials), and race driver Lyn St. James, official holder of the title “World’s Fastest Woman.”
And there is another individual who, but for the perplexities of corporate life, really could be present at the silver anniversary of the Mustang. Now chairman of the Chrysler Corp. and one of the nation’s most widely known business leaders, he is also known to knowledgeable car buffs as “the Father of the Mustang”: Lee Iacocca.
There’s an old saying about success having many fathers, but it is a fact that back in 1964, a much younger Iacocca, then president of the Ford Division of the Ford Motor Co., was the man who created the “pony car” concept and championed the Mustang (developed under the project code name Cougar) through the corporate maze of engineering and bureaucracy that attends the birth of any new car.
The car was an immediate sales success; within 2 1/2 years, 472 Mustang clubs formed, with a total membership of 32,000. During the past 25 years it has become the centerpiece legend of the Ford Motor Co. There are devotees throughout the world, as demonstrated by the fact that 37 European enthusiasts from Switzerland, Britain and the Netherlands paid to have their Mustangs shipped from Antwerp, Belgium, to Jacksonville, Fla., where they were picked up by their owners and are being driven cross-country for Sunday’s celebration.
This “American Pony Drive 1989” was organized by John Manners, a 47-year-old enthusiast from Sweden who owns five vintage Mustangs. He made a reconnaissance trip to the United States last year to plan the route of the cross-country drive, which took the cars on a high-profile trip through 11 major cities on their way West.
U.S. Drivers Joined
Members of Mustang clubs in the United States joined the Europeans on various segments of the cross-country jaunt, and the final leg, from Las Vegas to Knott’s Berry Farm, is being driven by the Europeans and other Mustang owners.
“The reception has been tremendously enthusiastic in every city where we’ve stopped so far,” Manners says. “I find it interesting that vintage Mustangs enjoy the same level of prestige both here and in Europe.
“Right from the start, the entire Mustang concept was aimed directly at guys like me--baby boomers with a lust for horsepower. And although roads and driving styles are different in Europe from those in America, Mustang enthusiasts are the same everywhere.”
The Fabulous Fords Forever show runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday in the parking lot of Knott’s Berry Farm. Admission is free.
