Boss Muscle – 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Boss Muscle – 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

If you want to create a standout muscle car, then look no further for inspiration than some of the impressive movie star cars that have exploded out of Hollywood. Our poster car from our last issue is a prime example.

Steve McQueen encouraged our fascination with creating US movie tribute cars, with that famous chase scene around the hills of San Francisco in the 1968 movie Bullitt.

Using a modified 1968 Ford Mustang 390 Fastback, versus the bad guy in the ’68 Dodge Charger for the stunt scenes with an identical-looking Mustang for close-ups.

It seems rivalry for star roles was as intense in the movies as it was in the marketplace, with Mustangs starring again in the ’74 movie Gone in 60 Seconds with the role going to a ’71 Ford Mustang Fastback. A ’67 Shelby GT500 starred in the 2000 remake with Nicholas Cage.

[Ben Selby has a neat story about a gathering of star cars in Christchurch, elsewhere in this issue of New Zealand Classic Car]

The movies also introduced us to Keanu Reeves as John Wick in 2014, along with a striking Ford Mustang Boss 429 – or was it?

RARE BOSS

Ford Mustang Boss 429s are a rare item, and extremely valuable, so the movie company modified some ’69 Ford Mustang Mach 1s as a cheaper lookalike option, running modern Coyote V8s and an automatic transmission.

Four John Wick movies later, and the list comprised ’69 Ford Mustang Mach 1, ’70 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 396, ’71 Plymouth ’Cuda, and a 2011 Dodge Charger SXT in each one, a welcome list in anyone’s classic garage!

The Boss 429ci engine was Ford’s combatant behemoth running in Nascar against Dodge’s Hemi. Competition was fierce, with Ford attesting that the 429ci V8 was rated at a mere 375bhp when in reality it was probably well over 500bhp.

John Wick, the mysterious bogeyman in the dark suit and black shirt, and his movies have redefined the action genre, with muscle cars an integral part of the plot, especially in the first, in which his Mustang gets a lot of screen time. They look and sound great, which encourages the petrol heads among us.

REDEFINING A MACH 1

Peter and Sonya Jackson’s 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 has recently undergone a John Wick transformation with John Galvin’s team at The Surgery in Wellington. The change in character has been breathtaking.

Peter explains how the transformation came about: “I’ve had the car for probably about 12 years. I bought it out of New Plymouth, and it was in a Grabber Blue colour, with all the usual decals of a Mach 1 Mustang. Its original colour was a Grabber Yellow, and it came into the country quite some time ago. It’s had several owners, and I have all its history.”

The Mustang spent a lot of its early days cruising in the Auckland region before moving to Wellington then to New Plymouth, then Peter bought it.

“I gradually realised it was starting to get a bit of rust coming through here and there, particularly around the back of the roof where the pillars meet the main part of the car. They all go there,” he says.

The Mustang was still in good condition, so they needed to decide what to do to keep it that way.

A LITTLE SURGERY

When it comes to classics, it’s always a matter of careful choices, how much the work is going to cost, and if it’s cost-effective, as Peter explains: “It was a matter of thinking, well, at some stage I probably need to get it repainted just to be fair to the car because it was otherwise in reasonably good condition, so then I embarked on that whole adventure, you know, through those guys. They’re a good outfit. John and his team do a great job.”

Peter has seen the John Wick movies, and with his car being a ’69 Mach 1 just as they used in the first and second movies, it seemed to be the ideal scenario to create a John Wick tribute car “You know, it’s well worth the money, although it’s a lot of money,” Peter says. “Yeah, that’s something you don’t set out on without a lot of thought, isn’t it?”

CHANGING PRIORITIES

Prior to the Mustang going into the workshop, Peter drove it regularly, but now his perspective on the Mustang has changed. It’s a stunning transformation which has brought with it a sudden realisation.

“I’ve driven it a heck of a lot, although not so much since it’s been renovated, because it arrived back to me right at the beginning of winter, so, unfortunately,

I haven’t been in it a lot since,” he says. “And, of course, you know, it’s so nice now. Previously, I would park it in town on the side of the road, and I wouldn’t actually be worried about it. But now, with a paint job as good as it is, I’m probably going to be a bit more picky as to where I park. It’s sort of gold on four wheels, isn’t it? Well, it is a little bit, yeah.”

Like many of us following a restoration, there was always that on- tenterhooks dread of the inevitable. “I can see that I’m going to be upset if it ends up with a big stone chip or something like that,” Peter acknowledges. “So, otherwise, I have driven it a fair bit, back up to New Plymouth a couple of times for car shows and all of that.”

SUNDAY CRUISER

The Mustang is now definitely a Sunday cruising car, and for weekends away.

“It’s still fitted with a 351 Windsor and a four-speed manual. I don’t know if it was originally a manual [transmission]. I think someone may have changed that, but it’s all still original inside. It’s just that, unfortunately, someone decided to change the paint colour for better or for worse, so now we’re down that road of actually making it, I wanted to make it look a little bit more current, I suppose. I haven’t put the stripes back on it, and it’s now got some machined bonnet latches. It’s still the same type of bonnet pin, but it hasn’t got the three screws in it as the others looked quite rough,” says Peter.

At the front, LEDs have been fitted,

providing better night driving: “I’ve had them rigged up so all four come on as driving lights just in the outer ring, so it looks quite mean in the daytime, especially in the winter. It looks quite aggressive, and I quite like that little bit of retro.”

The result has been a new appeal for this tribute theme. “Especially today as they have a bit of a following, even with the younger people, and to see, I guess, them nudging what’s popular today is quite cool. It’s changing and there’s a lot of interest out there from young people,” he says.

MOTIVATION FOR CHANGE
I asked Peter what motivated the change to the popular John Wick tribute. “I really like the two-tone grey, especially if you Google John Wick on the web, what comes up is a particular car, I

think, where they were taking that model, and they were totally rebuilding it. There are shots of it – I think it must be on a tarmac – and it just looks so cool. It’s missing its striping and stuff, but it still looks amazing.

“I’ve kept the original wheels, as I just love those wheels. They look really cool.
I think the clean lines of it, the one-piece look, and they don’t make cars like that anymore, with just that one piece kind of shell. It’s an incredible piece of panelling, and they’re a distinctive-looking car as it is. Then you go and put these little detail bits in it. It just makes them something else again,” he explains.

Like several Mustang owners, Peter
has subtly increased the appeal of his car: “You do see quite a few Mustangs that have just been ever so slightly changed. They look fabulous, done well. I think it’d take a long time to get over this one at the moment!”