The Mustangs at the Queen Mary show - with all the classic Mustangs - is dead.
QUEEN OF THE STONE AGE
11th Annual Mustangs At The Queen Mary
By Brian Kennedy
The Mustang hobby as we knew it is dead. At least, that’s what it appeared at the 11th Annual Mustangs at the Queen Mary show sponsored by the Beach Cities Mustang Club on September 23rd.
Perhaps you remember when Mustang shows were collections of 1960s cars, each configured just as it had come out of the showroom years before. No modifications, no modern cars. Perhaps you liked it that way. Well, here’s news: those days are gone in favor of fields which feature many more Mustangs from this Millennium than the prior one. Depending on your perspective, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Why the change? Not that long ago, you could still buy a reasonable condition used Mustang on the open market for a few thousand bucks, put some repop parts on it to bring it back to new, have it painted, and be done without taking out a second mortgage. Those days, despite an ill-researched story in Mustang Monthly a few issues ago, are gone. (Am I alone here? That piece said something like, ‘Perhaps you want an early Mustang coupe that an old man owned and the family is selling for $3500?’ as if to imply that those were out there for the taking. That, my friends, is a load of crap.)
Trust me. I look at every car that comes available on the LA market, in ads or in person, in search of my perfect ride. And everything I’ve seen in the past two years has either been over 10 grand, or junk. Not unrestorable, but so far gone to need complete redoing, the kind of work that puts the sucker who writes the checks for it way in the hole.
These days, you’re gonna have $15K in a restored 1966 289 coupe, at least, and maybe twice that depending on what you start with. And that’s if you can find something that’s worth bothering with to begin with, which is something of a rarity. I’ve found just two decent cars over the past two years. I bought the second one, sure that I’d look for another year before it happened again.
So maybe it’s not that surprising that at a premier Mustang show like the QM event, the population of cars has shifted radically over the past few years so that now, by at least a couple of estimates, the show is biased about 70 percent in favor of modern-era cars. (We didn’t get an exact count, since the show organizers were too busy to chat mid-day.)
So what you saw, if you perused the show field, were lots of 2005-07 GTs, specialized models like the Roush and Cobra but also normal production models, many kitted out with modifications from superchargers to fancy taillight surrounds.
If you’re into the vintage Mustangs, the ones that started the hysteria, this is kind of depressing. You go to these sorts of shows to see the cars of your youth, your dreams, the era when gas was cheap and safety features confined to lap belts and padded dashes.
Full article: http://lacar.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=875
QUEEN OF THE STONE AGE
11th Annual Mustangs At The Queen Mary
By Brian Kennedy
The Mustang hobby as we knew it is dead. At least, that’s what it appeared at the 11th Annual Mustangs at the Queen Mary show sponsored by the Beach Cities Mustang Club on September 23rd.
Perhaps you remember when Mustang shows were collections of 1960s cars, each configured just as it had come out of the showroom years before. No modifications, no modern cars. Perhaps you liked it that way. Well, here’s news: those days are gone in favor of fields which feature many more Mustangs from this Millennium than the prior one. Depending on your perspective, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Why the change? Not that long ago, you could still buy a reasonable condition used Mustang on the open market for a few thousand bucks, put some repop parts on it to bring it back to new, have it painted, and be done without taking out a second mortgage. Those days, despite an ill-researched story in Mustang Monthly a few issues ago, are gone. (Am I alone here? That piece said something like, ‘Perhaps you want an early Mustang coupe that an old man owned and the family is selling for $3500?’ as if to imply that those were out there for the taking. That, my friends, is a load of crap.)
Trust me. I look at every car that comes available on the LA market, in ads or in person, in search of my perfect ride. And everything I’ve seen in the past two years has either been over 10 grand, or junk. Not unrestorable, but so far gone to need complete redoing, the kind of work that puts the sucker who writes the checks for it way in the hole.
These days, you’re gonna have $15K in a restored 1966 289 coupe, at least, and maybe twice that depending on what you start with. And that’s if you can find something that’s worth bothering with to begin with, which is something of a rarity. I’ve found just two decent cars over the past two years. I bought the second one, sure that I’d look for another year before it happened again.
So maybe it’s not that surprising that at a premier Mustang show like the QM event, the population of cars has shifted radically over the past few years so that now, by at least a couple of estimates, the show is biased about 70 percent in favor of modern-era cars. (We didn’t get an exact count, since the show organizers were too busy to chat mid-day.)
So what you saw, if you perused the show field, were lots of 2005-07 GTs, specialized models like the Roush and Cobra but also normal production models, many kitted out with modifications from superchargers to fancy taillight surrounds.
If you’re into the vintage Mustangs, the ones that started the hysteria, this is kind of depressing. You go to these sorts of shows to see the cars of your youth, your dreams, the era when gas was cheap and safety features confined to lap belts and padded dashes.
Full article: http://lacar.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=875
