Bonneville Mustang
After seeing a documentary about the Bonneville Speedweek only recently I wondered about the history of the Mustang at that same event. I know they’re all highly modified cars but surely in the past some Mustangs with ‘slightly’ moderated engines must have made it to the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Here’s Mario Andretti in the 1967 Autolite Mustang for instance, one that I found here. The Indy Ford engine they used had around 480hp.
“This was a project done on a stock bodied 1967 Mustang to see how fast it would go at Bonneville Salt Flats. Chickie was working for Autolite Sparkplugs and the car was driven by Mario Andretti. He recorded a best speed of 175.875 mph. They had a piston go away and the runs were ended.”
And here’s another one:
"The Mach could hold its own against the competition in any theater. Racing veteran Mickey Thompson flogged a couple of specially prepared Mach 1s at the Bonneville Salt Flats in some of the heaviest endurance testing ever performed on a production automobile."
More vintage sightings on the Mustang at the Bonneville Salt Flats? Let me know in the comments.
Mustang of the week #5
This week in the ‘Mustang of the week’ series my guest is Didier Lahousse (Exxodus on Flickr) from Charleroi (Belgium). Here are his answers to the 5 questions:
1. Which of your own photos in the Flickr group you like most?
This one was taken last summer (‘08). We spot the building in the background long time ago. It’s situated near the local airport and it’s very particular. In fact, the "sails" you see are used to get fresh air in the building, like natural air conditioning and on the roof there is a windmill that generates electrical power to the building. A kind of zero emission building almost ;)
2. Is there a particular story around one of your Mustang photos that you would like to share? Something that happened when you took it? Or something related to the response you got on the photo so far?
"My mustang on the street of Belgacom tower in Brussels, Belgium." This shoot is a professional shoot; It was used to illustrate an ad for a recycling company. Of cause, some Photoshop mods were done like: cleaning the street from cars, ad panels, … and the water splash was created launching sand bags into water, some reflections were added. If someone got the final product (magazine), I would appreciate if you could send me a scan!
Pictures taken on set (you’ll see the before / after effect):
3. Do you own a Mustang yourself? Which model? And would you like to have one if that’s not the case yet?
Got a 1969 V8 302 Coupe Mustang. Lot’s of mods where applied to the car like, some goodies to the engine, T5 5 speed trans, a ford 3.55 (read end 9”), 03 mach1 wheel (17”), line lock, cut outs, and more to come.
Some of the rebuild story photos can be found here.
4. Do you have a specific love for photographing Mustangs? Or is a coincidence? Or a passion for cars in general?
My mustang Story started in 2002, when I bought my own. As a French speaking man, I searched the interne for a good quality site to help me rebuild my pony. Not really happy by what i found, i decide to open my own "mustang passion forum" (
http://www.mustangpassion.com
). Since, the website has grown a lot and is now known as the French speaking reference site with more than 1600 members and 150.000 messages posted. In 2005, ‘mustang passion’ also transformed into a Mustang owner Club in Belgium and in France.
5. Which one of the other photos (in the Flickr group) are you jealous of as a photographer?
Many! But I always loved this one :
Good choices Didier. I would personally have chose other rims on the Mustang but then again, I don’t even have one… at least you do :)
Here’s on of the photos I like most out of your collection:
More goodness next Friday!
Mustang forest!
So you’re scanning through your RSS reader as usual and then you read this: [Secret Garden] Massive Secret Junkyard found in Rhode Island Forest. Worth investigating don’t you think?
“Imagine a secret junkyard frozen in time somewhere around the 70′s with every bit of vintage hardware stretching for hundreds of acres. Classic Mustangs, Camaros, Cadillacs, Hemis; you name it, it’s here. But not for long: The law man’s saying to crush ‘em. Massive mega-gallery below along with the location and what you can do to save them.”
Look at a selection of photos to get a taste of what is in the ‘Mustang forest’:
Seriously, this beats about everything I’ve written about on this blog. Here is what the guy who took all the photos (a ton of them) had to say about this:
“Thousands of these classics will go to waste. Here is mostly mustang pictures I took . There us Hundreds of 64-71 Mutangs. Boss, mach 1, many many convertibles, K codes, fastbacks.. Maybe Shelbys? The owner is crazy. He’s always drunk is very hard to deal with. He’s in another world. He said he personally DROVE nearly all the cars in a field in the 60′s-70 and left them there for dead. Many are rusted beyond repair. But there still many parts cars. It will take about two weeks of walking 5 hours a day to see all the cars here. Plus many of them are so buried in overgrown trees and prickers there is no way to see them. I seen a dozen complete 392 hemi cars. This guy refuses to advertise, so nobody knows about it. Believe it or not the guy is still buying cars and driving them in the woods. The last time i was there the owner bought a running 60′s mustang and drove it in the woods to be left for dead.”
Want to save a Mustang… and a forest at the same time? Here’s where you need to go. I looked it up on Live Maps and this is what it looks like from above:
Unbelievable! I have no other words for it.
Most popular Mustangs ever?
Mustang Monthly picks the most popular Mustangs ever based on what they’ve seen and heard from their readers. Not a very scientific way to do this but given their Mustang knowledge it’s definitely worth checking out.
5. 1969 Mach 1
I have no idea what these 2 eighties models (7 and 8) are doing in the list, those are models we are all trying to forget no? And I sure don’t know what the ‘93 Mustang Cobra is doing at number 3?! But then again, I sort of gave up in the early seventies and only happily look at the Mustang again since they re-launched the model in 2005. And I think the ‘67 Mustang GT 390 deserves better than number 6 etc etc…
Anyway, take a look for yourself (part 1 / part 2) and let me know in the comments about your personal Mustang top 3 or top 5. Maybe we can do our own list someday.
Boss & Mach 1 [AdClassix Week]
This entry belongs to the AdClassix special we’re organizing here this week – all in honor of some great classic Mustang ads. You can find the full collection here at the end of the week.
Thank god it’s Friday, you’re getting a double treat today – the 1970 ads for both the Boss and the Mach 1. First the ‘70 Boss 302 or Son of Trans-Am as they’re calling it, referring to the Boss Mustang winning Trans-Am races year after year.
Same year, same style of ad: the Mach 1 – pronounced Mach Won! Now that’s a nice way to say you’re a winner, this time referring to the 1969 Manufacturer’s Rally Championship.
Two more days of AdClassix, keep coming.
The day I buy my Mustang
… it’ll be in the US, and not in Europe. At least that’s for sure. Last weekend I went to Flanders Collection Car 2008, the classic car show in Flanders Expo (Ghent – that’s in Belgium), and there were a few Mustangs for sale. There were only few Mustangs there unfortunately, and they were expensive. This one for instance was a nice convertible, pretty much all original, and was on sale for €34.000 now that’s almost $51.000! Think about the Mustang you can get in the US for that, transportation costs included.
That said, they’re not all as expensive as this one. Looking at my favorite importer for classic cars in Belgium, it still seems most Mustangs average a cost of €15.000 – €17.500. I couldn’t help noticing how much of them are ‘sold’ already though, Mustang getting even more popular now?
Anyway, in 4 weeks now, it’s time for the Antwerp Classic Salon which I’ll got to as well. It’s better then the exhibition in Ghent and usually has quite a few Mustangs on display (as well as other great US and European classics of course). Let me know if you’ll be there as well, maybe we could do a photowalk?
More photos (but not a lot) on my Flickr account.
Mach 1
“… thundering along far ahead of the pack”! No more “Only Mustang makes it happen” for this commercial of the 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1. It wouldn’t fit either on this ‘special sports performance’ all American muscle car. Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: mach 1, 1969, mustang, muscle car, commercial, advertising
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