1966
Mustang
Owned by Allan and Kay Gejdos
Vancouver Chapter
I
first drove a new mustang in 1966 while on a visit back to Canada from New
Zealand where I was living and working at the time.
The car was a dark green coupe and belonged to a friend of mine. He let
me drive it and I immediately knew I would like to have one, however they
weren’t available in New Zealand at that time as cars were very expensive and
new cars were out of the question. But the idea stayed in the back of my mind
over the years.
I moved back to Canada living
in Winnipeg and was in the
market for a new used car.
There in a used car lot sat a nice dark green 66 fastback but alas it was
not to be as I now had two young children with a third on the way so a family
type car was more appropriate and I settled on a very nice 1964 Rambler American
four door sedan. Many years later
in Dec.1990 I found an ad in the paper with a restoration project for sale at a
very reasonable price. The
car was a 1966 Mustang convertible and
had been completely disassembled and Redi-stripped. The engine was totally rebuilt so all in all it
looked like a pretty good restoration project.
The owners mother had just bought a new BMW convertible which was sitting
outside so the mustang had to evacuate the garage.
Rick Pikulski, a member of
the Vancouver chapter went with his
trailer to Point Grey and we loaded
the car on to the trailer and took it to his shop in Port Coquitlam where he started the restoration.
I would drive to
his place on my days off to work on the car with Rick. Under Rick's skilled
hands the restoration took shape. The
automatic transmission went to
Bert’s Automotive for overhaul. The
previous owner didn’t do a very
good job of labeling parts or keeping track of where all the nuts and bolts came
from so was a bit of a chore, however there are many manuals and references for
the Mustang and parts are readily available so the project went quite quickly
and smoothly.
.
After
countless hours of block sanding the car was ready for paint.
We trailered the car to Don Warren of Rumble Seat restorations in Mission
and the car was painted a gorgeous Tahoe Turquoise base clear.
On return back to the shop we started the final assembly.
The
assembly progressed smoothly and the car was well on it’s way .
The running gear was the next step and the newly rebuilt 289 V8 and transmission was installed. 
With almost everything completed except the interior and convertible top we transported the car by trailer to my home in Tsawwassen to complete as Rick was moving back to Calgary to work at an Auto Restoration facility. I finished the assembly, installed new carpets and a new turquoise and white Pony interior and new factory original equipment 695/14 B.F. Goodrich bias ply tires.
.
One more trip by trailer to a shop in Langley for the installation of a new white convertible top.
After all the final bits and pieces were installed the rebuilt 289 was ready to fire up.
After
much persuasion the engine started up but would not run properly.
A local mechanic tried for a couple of hours but couldn't come up with an
answer. One of the members of the Greater Vancouver Mustang Assoc.
offered to have a look at it as he
was a mechanic at one of the local Ford dealerships. He took the heads off and discovered someone had
put in two wrong exhaust valves. With the problem
now solved the car ran perfectly and has run beautifully ever since.
I took the car to it’s first show in the summer of 1993 and it placed
second in the judged class. Since
then it has been to many shows and received
many awards including best in
it’s class at the Port Gardner Concours.
However the most fun is in driving it. I often think back to the day I
first drove one and still enjoy it as much today as I did in 1966.
Would I do it again? Well, I
have a 1939 Packard convertible under restoration... But that is another story
for another time.
