My father retired this year, after nearly 50 years as an Army Doctor and then in private practice. For much of my youth he worked 7 days a week, rarely got to see me play hockey until I was in college. Often times I would only see him at dinner because we never ate until he came home. He would be out of the house before I got up for school. We were stationed around the country when I was very young. My father is a patriot and despite having 2 young children he volunteered for service when he graduated from Med School. In 1965 he inherited a little money and he bought a 1965 Mustang hard top coupe, 289, automatic, ivy green with white pony interior and a black vinyl roof. I remember sitting on his lap as he let me steer the car around the parking lot. I remember going to Flyers games at 6 or 7 years old and hunting through the parking lot after the game for it.
With his retirement this year I decided I would try and find his car. Having nothing except memories to go on I had to settle for one I could make look as close to his old car as I could. After several months of searching I found a nicely restored very good driver condition Ivy Green hard top. After 2 months of back and forth with the seller who wanted a ridiculous price we came to an agreement. When I flew to Charlotte to see the car my expectations were far exceeded on its condition. The only issue was the interior was wrong, the black roof was not there and the car needed power steering and AC. All of those obstacles were not that difficult to overcome. I had the car shipped to me in Philly and over the summer with the help of a local upholstery shop and some mechanical help from the Mustang Barn in Souderton PA we got the car to a level where it runs and drives great and looks like I remembered.
So here is to my Dad who is now retired and who held our family together through some very hard times, with the help of my mother too. We wish she would now retire. We presented the car to him up here in Philly and let him drive it a bit and I just shipped it down to Florida so he and my mom could enjoy it this winter.
This is how the car turned out!
Thanks for everything Dad!
Dad and his "New" 1965 Mustang:
