Mustang Mach 1

If you ever owned a muscle car back in the sixties, and seventies you probably had the time of your life driving it. My muscle car was the Ford Mustang Mach 1 and that’s my story today.

Mustang Mach1

 

In October, 1970 when I was discharged from the Army, I needed a new car because I had sold my 1966 Mercury Cyclone GT just before I went to Viet Nam. I was looking for a fast sporty looking muscle car for a single guy. I found a bare bones 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 that I liked so I bought it new for $3000 cash in Panhandle, Texas. It had the 351 cubic inch engine with a four barrel carburetor and a four speed standard transmission. The car only weighed 3400 pounds, so it was very light for all that power. It did not have power steering or air conditioning, but what young man really needs those things. It was a dark blue color with a black hood scope, chrome racing safety hood hold downs, and a rear spoiler. I fell in love with that car and was proud to drive it everywhere I went.

 

When driving it out on the highway, it would cruise at seventy on two barrels of the carburetor. If you wanted to pass and stepped down on the gas petal, it would actually snap your neck when the other two barrels kicked in and you would be around the car before you could blink. I wasn’t much for racing other cars or burning rubber just for the hell of it, so I actually took pretty good care of the mustang.

 

A couple of years after I got the car, I met My wife Pam. She tried to drive it a couple of times but she couldn’t manage the manual steering, so she didn’t like it much. Shortly after we got married, I traded it in on an International Travelall family type vehicle. My Dad was trading cars so I let him trade in the mustang and I took the Travelall.

 

A couple of weeks after I traded in the mustang, I saw it totaled in Davis Chevrolets wreck yard. I guess the kid that got ahold of it couldn’t handle it. I was sorry to see the car I took such good care of wrecked beyond repair and put to rest.

The red 1966 Mercury Cyclone GT I sold just before I went to Viet Nam.

The blue 1970 Ford Mustang Mach1 that I bought when I got out of the Army.

The International Travelall we got for the Mustang Mach 1 trade. Quite a change from muscle car to family car.

Thanks for reading Mustang Mach1,
Hawg Jaw Bill