Imagine you are 22 years old, just got a new job, and you want a brand new car. You drive your beat-up Chevy to the dealership and the salesmen swarm. Everybody is looking for something. The salesman looking for that commission, the dealership, a nice profit. And you, you just want something you like and the salesman is showing you everything but what you want. Desperate, a good salesman always has something up his sleeve and he says “I might have something in the back you might like.” More on that later.
I was never a car guy or gear head. Sure I’ve changed my share of oil, oil filters, and spark plugs, but that was when my brother taught me on his Pontiac Firebird. Here I am in my mid-50’s and I have only owned three cars. A piece of junk in high school, a brand new loaded Honda in the military which died a painful death at around 240,000 miles. I now own a Camry which has just passed the 250,000 mark and still going strong. I only viewed them as something that gets me from A to B whenever I want it to.
My wife has owned several more cars than I, including some sporty models but currently is very much a truck girl (a touch of country, right there). She still has a sporty model sitting in our garage, a 1984 Ford Mustang SVO turbo.
Back to that 22-year-old. The date is April 15th, 1964, two days prior till Ford officially revealed its brand new Pony Car to the world at the World’s Fair in New York. This dealership just so happened to have a couple Mustangs in stock. The 22-year-old woman had cash and the salesman closed the deal making Gail Wise the first owner of a Ford Mustang, a blue convertible at that, for $3,500 dollars.
As far as I could tell, in 2018, she still owned the Mustang. Hagerty Insurance estimates the car is worth between $350,000 and $450,000 and maybe more today.
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