Million Dollar Mustangs



The Ford Mustang had its official introduction as a 1964 ½ model. But even before it was introduced, in 1963, Ford wanted to pump up interest in the forthcoming production car which would be a radical departure from the Mustang I show car in that it would no longer be a mid-engined car and no longer a two seater.

They secured a unitized body shell from a pre-production Mustang and sent it over the the custom shop for modifying. The first thing it got was a chopped hardtop, a removable hardtop so it could be used at races as a pace car, etc.

Ironically Mustang finally offered a hardtop several decades later and just as quickly discontinued it.

The car also had an extended nose, maybe extended as much as 8” to give it a more macho look and headlights covered with vertical chrome flutes to make them more mysterious similar to the 1963 Buick Riviera.

Out back the trunk lid was molded into a very sharp edged rear end and three separate taillights installed vertically, tipping off the theme of the 1967 production Mustang.

The prototype Mustang II also had a special interior with lots of brushed metal and lots of white material though it is difficult to tell from the pictures if it is white leather, or white vinyl.

The car was fully functional and there are pictures of it cruising around with Ford executives riding as passengers. Various race drivers were often tasked with driving the car at different appearances just as Dan Gurney drove the Mustang I before the Watkins Glen GP.

The car was bumperless for and aft. Back in the days of chrome bumpers, this would have been unacceptable for the American marketplace in a production car but after all in prototypes there are no rules. Actually today you could design a soft nose and tail and still use these lines.

Now what happened to the Mustang II prototype is not as difficult as the previous car we highlighted, because it’s not missing. At some point it was donated to the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum in Maine, 85 miles North of Portland.

Now how it was that this small museum acquired such a gem is unknown by this author. I do know that when a PR man retires, sometimes they arrange for a car that was going to be destroyed anyhow to go to a Museum. Sometimes the auto company executive that engineers the donation ends up being a Museum official. I’m not saying that happened at Owl’s Head. It could be that they just lucked out, maybe Ford needed a tax write-off and Ford heard that a Museum was looking for a car.



Would the Museum sell it?


Well, surprise, surprise auto museums do sell cars donated to them. It is not called by the crass word “sell” but instead “de-accession” which sounds so much more fancy. Why do they sell? They have too many cars; or maybe it doesn’t fit in with a theme they might be deciding on like for instance “Cars of New England,” etc. Or maybe if they sell that one car they can buy several more that fit their theme. For instance the Henry Ford Museum sold a Mercedes 300SLR race car that was worth millions so they could buy several antique American cars. American cars fit the theme at Greenfield Village.

I predict this is another Mustang that , if brought to , say the Barrett-Jackson or RM Auction at Monterey in August, would fetch a million bucks because, after all, it is the oldest Mustang available being a 1963 model. The only Mustang worth more would be the Mustang I show car but that’s a story we will save for later….