In a ’67 Ragtop, Clinton Joins ‘Rabid Mustangers’ : Nostalgia: President drives his ‘most precious possession’ at a birthday bash for the classic car. The door’s stuck, the chrome’s bent, but it’s a museum piece now.
President Clinton made a nostalgic visit to his and America’s past on Sunday with an appearance at a Ford Mustang owners’ convention at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Clinton cruised onto the oval track behind the wheel of his own turquoise 1967 Mustang convertible and was introduced to the sun-splashed infield crowd by Mustang Club of America President Bill Dillard, who said the President is “a rabid Mustanger like the rest of us.”
Clinton, wearing a red “Mustang 30th Anniversary” windbreaker, stood beaming beside his car, which has a dented chrome strip on one side and a driver’s door that doesn’t open from the inside.
The car has the stock six-cylinder engine, automatic transmission and a white top and interior. The ragtop bears an Arkansas historical vehicle plate in the rear and a vanity tag up front reading “Bill Clinton.”
The Mustang Club of America paid to transport the car from Arkansas, and Ford Motor Co. did some repairs on it Saturday so that Clinton could drive it Sunday.
The President noted that “nobody lets me drive anymore” and took obvious pleasure in being behind the wheel of his precious car once more. His lead Secret Service agent, Dave Carpenter, rode shotgun.
Clinton flew here from Williamsburg, Va., where he attended a Senate Democratic policy retreat on Saturday and played a round of golf Sunday morning.
At the speedway, Clinton showed off his Mustang, which he purchased in the mid-1970s from his younger brother, Roger, and which is now garaged at a car museum in Morrilton, Ark.
Clinton has promised that he will personally retrieve it as soon as he completes his term of office in Washington. He has called the car his “most precious possession.”
“As a proud Mustang owner, I know what an important milestone this is,” Clinton wrote in a letter to other Mustang owners. “For many Americans, the Mustang remains a vibrant symbol of the excitement and optimism of the 1960s, when it was first conceived.”
At the track, he signed the dented fender of one Mustang and sat in the “playboy pink” 1967 Mustang of Rochelle McNeal of Pensacola, Fla.
The Charlotte show was sponsored by Ford and the Mustang owners’ club to mark the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the Mustang, which shattered sales records and spawned a new class of sporty, youth-oriented automobiles known as “pony cars.”
The Mustang swept America in the months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and as U.S. involvement in Vietnam was growing. Ford sold 417,000 of the 1964 Mustangs, and the car has become a cultural icon.
The car initially sold for $2,368 with a 170-cubic-inch six-cylinder engine, a three-speed manual transmission and a bare-bones vinyl interior.
In its various incarnations, from basic family transportation to supercharged, customized hot rod, more than 6 million Mustangs have been sold in 30 years.
