Allen is a latecomer to the car hobby-raising a family was much more of a priority, so any dreams about frivolous things like a ’67 390 GTA Ford Mustang took a back seat to reality.
‘He could live with that because he knew at some point, he would own his dream-a ’67 Mustang fastback.’
The car he could only dream about for decades until his retirement.
But Allen did get a car-guy baptism by fire when he took the 43,000 mile Mustang to his first show and some clown at a gas station thought vintage Mustangs ran on diesel fuel.
He was at a large car show when he decided to gas up the Pony before a major cruise. Suddenly his automotive steed started running like it had a broken leg so he had to call off the 50-mile cruise. Instead, he limped the car back to his hotel and tried to assess the damage.
The next day he was able to prod the old Ford back to the show and that’s where the car fraternity jumped into action. Some of the guys at the meet diagnosed the problem as “sheer idiocy in pump jockey” when they saw and smelled how the car ran. Allen was advised to drain the tank and not run his ‘Stang.
Allen took their advice and came away with his first lesson as an old car guy-expect the unexpected.
His second was more positive. Allen was blown away by the old car fraternity because they jumped into action when his Mustang went lame. They offered help immediately without even knowing Allen’s name, and that’s what sold him on his new retirement hobby.
Even after such a negative first experience with his low mileage classic, Allen’s biggest observation of his event-filled first car show weekend was this-“I’ve found a new family”.
Car guys like happy endings so we decided to add a PS to this story in Allen’s own words:
“Just saw the article about my 67 Mustang. Appreciate it. After I got the car home, I drained the fuel, put in new and car ran like a top again“.
Jerry Sutherland
