All The Pretty Horses

This isn’t an Auto Biography. It’s just plain drooling.

The Vancouver Island Mustang Club held its annual Pony show this past weekend. A bunch of other cool old cars were present, but I was there for the ’Stangs – specifically, those built in 1966, but having written a ’67 GT into one of my stories, I snapped a photo of the closest version in the show (Cassie’s is white, not copper) for future reference.

The rest of my time was spent murmuring and caressing assorted fenders while Ter kept watch for signs of imminent blubbering. I’m a car freak from my earliest memory, but my absolute, all time, irrefutable favourite is the Ford Mustang. Not the fake ones produced over the last 30 years, but the originals, the first out-of-the-gate beauties that set the tone and the bar for the competition ever after. Maybe I’m partial because I actually owned one for a few years (an Auto Biography to come), but honestly, all I could think as I roamed the field was how they don’t make cars like these anymore. Too much plastic, not enough chrome, all model numbers and no defining names – blech. My interest waned after the body style changed in 1979; the Mustang II was a pretty little thing, but for rubber-burning, rib-shuddering, G-force-generating power, there was nothing like the Boss Mustang or the Mach 1.

Even I know my limitations. Trying to rein in one of those bad boys would be against my nature. I could drive one, but they were built to run at the speed of sound and I have too much respect for the animal to keep it in second gear all the time.

No, my former ride was a compact V-6 automatic that looked suspiciously like this one:

If I hoped to find my baby restored to her former glory at this show, I was … relieved. My heart fluttered for a minute, but my Mustang had bucket seats and this one didn’t. Phew. If I had run into my old car, Ter would have had to call for restraints.

We wandered along the lines from 1965 to present day, noting shapes and colours and varying specifics that made each vehicle unique (and also noting the alarming tendency for the average owner to be my age, greying, and paunchy), and when we were finally ready to head out, I picked my Best in Show:

A 1966 black V-8 hardtop that was so stunning I was willing to exchange my silver blue memory for a new midnight black future. If it had been for sale … well, let’s just be grateful that it wasn’t. 

Oh, and the sexiest sound ever to rattle an eardrum? The engine on the 1965 Shelby fastback that rumbled in just as we were leaving. No picture; I was frozen and slack-jawed as it prowled past. 

I love my Volkswagen; truly I do. But in my dreams, in my stories, and in my heart, I am always driving a Mustang.