We see so many cars in our yard many look the same, but we haven’t seen this scenario before of having two brother cars of the same model within a few VIN numbers of each other. The cars were made and exported to different countries and now they have been reunited in our yard for the first time in fifty years, what are the odds on that? We suspect they would have been on the production line at the same time, perhaps as one was rolling off the other was rolling on. The first car we had in was from Belgium:

The second car was in from France, the French car requires a fair bit of work doing to it, starting with the rear quarter panels. Yogi has got both the quarters off now and has started on the prep of the inner arches.

While we are on the subject of the Yogi, he has been prowling in another workshop too, kicking some more rust butt in the panel shop. We sneaked this picture of him, we are trying to work out if he getting ready to hibernate for the winter working out which is the best cave (workshop) for himself! We did see him move though, so we don’t think he was asleep just yet.

Presentation:

Sometimes we are genuinely surprised by our customers, this week was one of those occasions where a retired Ford Director came to see us. He presented us with this fantastic montage for looking after his car for him. The montage is a collection from the World Trade Fair 1964. The fair is legendary as this is where the Mustang was famously shown to the world and set the benchmarks for first day sales figures of 22,000 on 17th April 1964, in fact even Ford was shocked at America’s appetite for the Mustang during ’65. It sold an astounding 409,260 coupes, 77,079 2+2 fastbacks and 73,112 convertibles that year. That’s a total of 559,451 Mustangs for the ’65 model year.

The presentation has some words to cover the photographs;

“Back in late 63, Henry Ford 2 commissioned Walt Disney to design the ‘Ford Pavilion’ (an industry first) at the 1964 New York World Fair – where the new Mustang was to be launched.. His idea was to use Ford convertibles (Galaxies, Fairlanes, Falcons and Mustangs) adapted and bolted to specially constructed rails to guide visitors around the vast Ford exhibition – Disney uses this rail type design today on many of its rides. The Fair was opened on April 22 1964 with tickets costing $2.00 and the U.S. Mail issued postage stamps to commemorate the event. A few of these were mailed to customers by Ford featuring Mustang and stamped April 22 1964. Henry and Walt were the first to sample the new Ford/Disney experience. Before the Fair opened officially, Ford launched the new Mustang on April 17 1964 to the press, dealers and customers – customers could then place their orders….and they did in huge numbers setting a new record for a car launch. Interestingly, Ford was the first and only manufacturer to have Mustang launch articles in both the ‘Time’ and ‘Life’ magazines at the same time…a few days after launch Ford managed the ‘full house’ of the top three U.S. publications featuring Mustang when ‘Newsweek’ ran an article in their April 20 issue. All three editions are now rare and highly collectable.”

The presentation now hanging in our boys club for all to see;

On Saturday we had a full house of people here, along with our working guests Chris and Mart. Both were shown the presentation and liked it – a lot. Both stood there for a while (as we did) and took it all in. They had seen photo’s of the glow in the dark badges, but not the real thing. Chris took it off the wall for a closer look.

Chris hiding behind the frame

There was a very funny conversation that took place along the lines of this;

Mart: “Careful with that ’cause I’m having it”

Chris: “Yeah but, I’m holding it – its mine”

Mart: “I’ll fight you for it then” (Mart started laughing)

Chris: “I can run faster than you” (Chris started laughing)

Adam: “I have 8 guard dogs that aint been feed yet!” (Adam started laughing)

With that Chris put the picture back on the wall again. A funny moment caught with all the guys in the boys club during a morning cup of tea. If you’re lucky and get a guided tour from Adam he might let you look at it – he might have fed the dogs by then. 😉

We have some close up pictures of the presentation of the original ticket, First day of issue stamp, and a postcard from the Fair.

original ticket

badges

First day cover

postcard of the fair

We have been collecting some pictures of the World Trade Fair for a while now that people have sent to us and what we have tracked down. Hopefully these will be a little different to the more common images you find.

Lee Iacocca introduces the new 1965 Ford Mustang

Lee Iacocca introduces the new 1965 Ford Mustang

We have a link to show what has happened to the area after the World Trade Fair. Click here.

Customer Cars:

Chris had a good weekend getting down to the bare metal after the layers of under seal had been removed. The bare metal has exposed some issues that were covered up by the under seal. As you may remember Mart found all sorts of issues when he got to the bare metal too. Chris is looking a half a floor pan by the looks of it and the rest we can patch up as it’s not that bad. What we haven’t seen for a while is just how dirty these guys get when doing this messy part of the restoration. Keep it up Chris.

News:

There have been some updates made to our WebShop after some great feedback from customers. Now when you select an item to view, the current stock status for the item will be shown. Hopefully you can now order with confidence without having to call us up and check.