Collector Classics: 1967 Ford Mustang Convertible

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Carol Mills was just 17 years old and about to attend the University of British Columbia to pursue a teaching degree when her parents bought the candy apple red 1967 Mustang convertible. Although Edward and Anne Gorman kept the car in their names, it was purchased as a second car for their daughter to drive to university.

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What a car for a teenager. As a young person growing up in the West End of downtown Vancouver, cruising through Stanley Park and around English Bay was a regular summer pastime.

“I used to put the top down and cruise to the downtown White Spot drive-ins at Georgia and Cardero and Burrard and Smithe Streets where the carhop delivered a hamburger, fries and a coke for $1.05,” she says, recalling her early days with the Mustang convertible. “The food was delivered on a long tray that attached to the inside of the door.  It was a perfect picnic.” It wasn’t the first car her parents bought for her to drive. “I learned to drive in a 1952 Pontiac with a big sun visor,” she says. “My father insisted that I learn to drive a standard shift car.”

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The family lived in the centre of downtown Vancouver. For 26 years, her parents managed the Park Plaza Apartments at 1140 West Pender Street. The building was torn down in the Seventies to make way for an 18-storey office tower which now houses the Canada Revenue Agency offices. “The area was all residential when we lived there. We had a two-storey apartment with the bedrooms upstairs adjacent to elegant lobby in a building that opened in 1911 as the Elysium Hotel. There was a ramp beside the building with a long driveway leading to garages in the rear. That’s where my parents kept the cars. It was a wonderful place to live,” Carol says.

The bill of sale from Musgrove Ford in Vancouver shows the new candy apple red Mustang convertible cost $4,175. It was equipped with a 289 cubic inch V8 engine, power steering, disk brakes and top along with bucket seats and a console.  A trade-in of the family’s red and white 1959 Dodge Custom Royal with a continental kit knocked $1,000 off the bill. “My parents were not wealthy, and they had to finance the new Mustang,” she says.

In 1967, the year her parents bought the Mustang, Carol had really wanted a new Pontiac Firebird. They had just come into the showroom at Bowell McLean Pontiac-Buick-Cadillac on Burrard Street where she had worked after school since the age of 15.

“They didn’t want to sell the Firebirds to anyone who worked at the dealership because they would have to discount them at a time they were selling all they could get. I didn’t get a Firebird. But I did get a convertible instead. Working at a GM dealership and purchasing a Ford was a bit of a conflict. I blamed my parents,” she says.

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Carol walked the few blocks from her home to her part-time job at the car dealership where she graduated from handling the mail to the switchboard, being a parts and service cashier, general office worker and, eventually, to the parts department. When she started teaching in Surrey, she got an apartment close to the school so she wouldn’t have to drive her car all the way from downtown Vancouver. Eventually, the Mustang became her daily transportation to school from where she lived in Vancouver, Surrey and Burnaby until 1982.  “One tank of gas a week cost about $4.50. Now it would be well over $100,” she says.

During her summer breaks from teaching, she worked at the car dealership doing holiday relief. She eventually married parts manager Al Mills. “My husband always had a new company car, Cadillacs or Buicks, so we drove them on our holidays. The Mustang has never been out of British Columbia and has never been through a car wash,” Carol reports. The couple bought their home in Surrey which was within walking distance from the elementary school where Carol taught.

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The Mustang is much like it was when Carol’s parents drove it home to their West End Vancouver apartment building. Over the past 56 years, the car has been driven only 105,000 miles (169,000 kilometres). That’s roughly 1,875 miles or 3,000 kilometres a year. The Mustang has the original candy apple paint. The interior remains in like-new condition as Carol installed cloth seat covers on the front seats. “The vinyl was too hot in summer and cold in winter,” she says. Carol’s day-to-day car is a 10-year-old Cadillac CTS, the last car she and her husband bought before he passed away.

The Mustang convertible that has been in her life since she was a teenager is a classic that has aged well and now rests safely tucked away in her garage.

Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in a Vancouver-based public relations company. [email protected]