Back on the morning of June 13, 1998, when we still checked the local newspaper classified ads for antique and classic cars for sale, I found “it” in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Just an hour’s drive away in Coopersburg, Pa., there “it” sat: an unrusted, unmolested, one-registered-owner 1973 Mustang Mach 1 that had been stored for the last 10 years. The seller’s phone was ringing off the wall so after a quick, on-the-spot negotiation, it was mine. Great, but it was dull green with the usual assortment of minor dings from parking lot encounters.
I grew up in the school of “restored down to the inspection stamps” and completed a couple of authentically, meticulously restored-for-show Continental Mark IIIs, 1963 and ’65 T-Birds and two finned MoPars. But the Mach 1 was green — boring, dull green. I got out the factory Mustang paint chart for 1973, but nothing did much for my Mach 1 or for me. I could still at least pick a Ford color, right? But my wife Lois thought, and I had to agree, that a clearcoat of MoPar’s Candy Apple Red Pearl color-sanded and buffed to a glassy finish would really work with the silver argent trim on the ’Stang.
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