1969 Ford Mustang

Mach 1 Sportroof / Fastback

351C

4 speed toploader

9F02H179147

Clear

Gasoline

This is a beautiful, 1969 true Mach 1. This car is the result of a father-son project undertaken by me and my 16 year old son Craig over the last 18 months. There are some pictures of the progress of the restoration available at: http://craigsmach1.shutterfly.com. This car was my friend Bob's project which was started over 20 years ago, and then it was left untouched in his garage covered up with a painter's tarp. This car has 76,825 original miles on it.In 1992, this car was completely disassembled, all rust (which there was very little, so I'm told) was repaired, and NOS (remember this was 1992) metal was used to repair/replace the quarters, door skins, fenders and deck lid. The body panel fit is wonderful. Once repairs were completed, the builder painted the entire undercarriage, engine compartment, interior floors and firewall with POR-15. When I picked up the car last year, there was zero rust. You will see that in the pictures. The car was primed, and the door sills and other fringe areas painted candy apple red. You will see that in the pictures with the car on the trailer.At the time, Bob owned a gas station and auto repair, so he had great connections in the car repair business. He wanted to build a high performance Mach 1 as his own driver, and at that time, gas was only around $1 a gallon, so he had his engine builder build him a 351C, worked, with 4-V heads. I have included the specs. I received not only that worked Cleveland, but also a 4 speed toploader, the numbers matching 351 Windsor 2V motor and the numbers matching 3 speed toploader. Both engines came on engine stands and were kept in his garage for over 20 years. My son Craig and I decided to use the Cleveland in our build since it had already been re-built. Bob swore that he had been squirting oil in the cylinders and turning the engine over by hand regularly for 20 years. We were a bit skeptical, so upon receipt, we disassembled the engine, and to our surprise, that thing looked like it was rebuilt yesterday. It was perfect. You could still see the cross-hatch from the honing on the cylinder wall, and no evidence that any piston was sitting in one place, ever. I had to call Bob to apologize that we ever doubted him. So we cleaned and re-lubed the motor with fresh assembly lube, put it back together with new gaskets and installed it in the car. We topped it with a period correct 700 CFM Holly with mechanical secondaries. It fired right up, we broke in the cam and it is now a very happy and powerful power plant for the car. We installed 1970 factory 4V high flow cast iron exhaust manifolds and a correct dual exhaust with chrome tips. We have driven it around town and on the highway quite a bit, and the motor is rock solid. The numbers matching Windsor and 3 speed trans and Ford 3 speed shifter are in my garage on the stand. If the buyer wants them, they go with the sale. If the project didn't come with a rebuilt Cleveland and 4 speed, we would have freshened up the Windsor and used that.I had my good friend Tony who owns a body shop for 30 years align the body panels, and then had the car painted its proper Candy Apple red paint with correct black out treatment (T5). I'd give the paint a 9.5 out of 10. We were extremely careful (and successful) not to damage the paint during the re-assembly, and it shows very nicely. All the chrome (or stainless as it is) was in excellent shape, and I took most of it to my friend's stainless steel fabrication shop and polished it. It is awesome too.A resurfaced flywheel was installed, along with a stage 2 SPEC clutch coupling the 4 speed. The car now has a 9" posi, 31 spline rear axle with standard drum brakes (again, installed in 1992). All the suspension components, including the springs are new. The front has the Shelby drop (this was done by the builder in '92). The car has integrated sub-frame connectors, something that was quite a novelty back in the 90s. The car wears its factory issued wheels, including the spare. All new BF Goodrich Radial T/A rubber graces the vehicle (225/70/14). All new front brake calipers, pads and hardware were install. These parts came to me from Bob as what they called "fully loaded" brake replacement. The parts were from Ford, from 1990, in the factory boxes, and were kept in Bob's house for 20 years. When I took them out of the box, they were perfect.Most, but not all the parts were with the car when I picked it up from Bob, so my son and I bought a '69 GT 390, 4 speed car as a parts donor. Alas, the GT, which is much rarer than the Mach 1, by about 16:1, unfortunately ended up as scrap. You might see a couple of pictures of it on the website. Its orange.The Mach 1's interior was changed from red to black, primarily because when we bought all the interior kit upholstery, we couldn't get all the parts in red, and dying them never comes out right, so we agreed on the change. The seats were disassembled, the frames were cleaned and painted, new burlap and foam were applied, and finally new upholstery was installed. This car bears its factory console with a few new parts like the woodgrain inset and rear ashtray. The door panels are new, but wear their factory woodgrain inserts. All the instruments work correctly (gas gauge is slightly off), and the speedometer has been calibrated by installing the correct drive gear on the speedo cable. Its been checked against my GPS and is dead on. We added a period correct Sun Pro tach, since the factory instrument cluster did not sport a tach. The rim blow steering wheel was disassembled, cleaned repaired, painted, re-assembled, tested and put back in service. It was amazing, but the rim blow element was is perfect working order, so we just cleaned and re-used it.There are a few deviations from stock. The car was upgraded to power disk brakes. This was done back in the 90s, we provided a new vacuum booster. We restored and installed period correct (from the GT) power steering. We added the tach. We upgraded the clock to a quartz movement. I just couldn't get the clock to run reliably, so I upgraded it. The radio is a modern Retro Sound ZUMA-B with auxiliary input for iPhone etc. The antenna is a removable type. The car doesn't fit in my garage over/under my other Mustang on the lift unless I remove the antenna. I will include a concourse correct antenna with the sale if you remind me.All in all, the project was a success. I got to spend lots of quality time with my kid and he stayed out of trouble. He is a quick learner, and he learned all about the different sub-systems of the car, and how to rework, repair, align, install and qualify them. The car came out great, and in my opinion, in record time. Our plan was to finish the car, and let Craig drive it around for a few weeks/months, and then we would sell it. He mastered driving a four speed while driving "his" Mach 1 back and forth to high school for a couple of months. I don't think he realized that I removed the linkage for the secondaries, so he only experienced it with 2V operation. He has a group of friends that have vintage muscle cars, so it was really great to let him bring it to school and they could all share the experience, some of them came to help with the restoration. Amazingly, the car didn't get a scratch on it during that entire time he was driving it. It is just too nice for him to keep as a daily driver, not to mention that my collector car insurance wouldn't cover him if he had an issue.So, the time has come to part with it. Again, this car is an extremely nice example, mechanically perfect, runs and drives awesome. Its been upgraded with a worked 351 Cleveland, 4 speed, but comes with the numbers matching Windsor and 3 speed if you want it. The car is insured for $34,000, but my reserve is way below that. I am listing this locally, so I reserve the right to end the auction early.Any questions, please feel free to post them, and I will do my best to reply in a timely fashion.Happy bidding.