Until last weekend.
The Wife and I had considered taking a little extended drive a couple of weeks ago. At first we just considered driving down to Monterrey and back in a single afternoon. But then my Wife suggested that we go down to Pismo Beach. She found us a reservation to stay just one night.
Pismo is only about an easy three hour drive from San Jose taking Highway 101. Always a pleasant drive for me.
The car was still nice and clean after I had washed and waxed it. It did look particularly well cared for.
I hadn't been driving it very much over the last few months, but all it took was a fluids level and tire pressure check and it was ready to go.
This is one of my cars that I keep in good running condition so it's always ready to hit the road.
While the car is capable of any speed, I wasn't in a hurry and wasn't going to fall into that trap where I find myself pushing the speed ever higher, zooming around traffic.
I was going to follow my usual pattern. I'll just cruise at 70 mph. until I get south of King City then speed up to 75 mph. Just five miles over the limit. Occasionally I'll speed up to 85-90 to get around a slow knot of traffic.
But I wanted to relax, the car is geared so high that even 75 mph. is less than 2,500 rpm, and the Flowmasters just emit a mellow burble at that speed. Completely inoffensive.
It's as well equipped as most modern cars with A/C, cruise control, tilt wheel, and a CD player. The sports seats are upholstered in a very comfortable tweed-like cloth, which allows for air flow between your body and seat. Even better than leather, which most of my other cars have. It also rides a bit rougher than my other vehicles but it's a performance car. Yes, it doesn't have all the latest bells and whistles like navigation, Bluetooth connectivity, or active cruise control. But who cares?
You'll never find me over in the right lane holding down a speed of 55 mph. Like some old muscle cars or Low Riders. My car is a driving car.
As a '96 model it's 24 years old. The SN95 model goes back a couple of years more, a quarter of a Century. Kind of hard to believe, I remember when a bunch of my co workers were driving Mustangs like this. That was after they traded in their Fox bodies!
It's vintage but you can drive it like a new car!
We were waiting for our to-go order from Brad's and watched some of the cars cruising down Pomeroy, which runs into the pier.
I saw a couple of custom cruiser cars on the main street near the pier. A chopped, fully customized 49 Merc, then a 49 Chevy Low Rider and as we were leaving the restaurant, another Low Rider, a '62 Impala convertible.
It was a Sunday afternoon but I didn't see any more SN95s. In fact I only saw a few new Mustangs. When we arrived at Pismo I saw a white Mustang parked at the curb. As we left in the morning I saw one parked on the side of the street just before the freeway entrance.
Once we were on the way home on US 101 itself I see didn't see many other older cars. We did get passed by a slightly raggedy purple VW Golf convertible. That was north of Paso Robles. There was a young blonde girl driving solo making pretty good time. She exited south of Santa Maria then we saw her again, as she passed us north of Salinas.
Oh, there was a another beat up old Honda which paced us from King City to Salinas.
For the most part all the other traffic were much newer models. I have to admit that I saw a couple more new Camaros compared to the Mustangs.
Last year when I was getting the oil changed one of the techs, an old guy like me, went on and on about the condition of my car. He advised me not to sell it unless somebody makes me an offer I can't refuse. Even a homeless guy panhandling on the corner asked me if it was a 5.0. He said that he used to have a GT like mine. Then a young middle aged couple in their Forties remarked on the sound of the exhaust when I started it up. "Yeah, we could tell that it was Mustang." The guy said that they used to have one, when they were first married.
Wow, these were the kind of contacts that I used to have when I drove my old '66 Ford F 250.
I always considered that to be a vintage vehicle.
But my Mustang?
I guess when your choice of car triggers nostalgic reactions in on lookers, I guess that it does make it vintage.
I still see quite a few early SN 95 Mustangs around town. Also the "New Edge" facelift models. Many of the older cars are V6 beaters which are primarily used for low buck, in town basic transportation. I'd say that most of the examples I see that are in better shape are the V8 GTs.
Some of which have obviously been fixed and freshened up a bit.
You could call my car a survivor, it's pretty original.
It may be getting to the point where it might be too original!
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