1973 Mach 1 Serial# 100003

[72HCODE]

THIS SITE IS SO AWESOME!

 

[StepanieS]

Hi David,

That's what got me to sign up and post - that the car was being reported to have 16,000 miles. Kind of irked me. The guy I sold the car knew it was a heavily used driver and had the wheels driven nearly off it. I saw later when he refurbished it, he was peddling a story of how a retired Ford worker remembered this exact car coming down the line at Dearborn.

When we bought it, as you see it had wrong 71-72 stripes on it. Clunky ugly mag wheels. The Hermiston, OR Ford salesguy had done a quickie repaint and such. Although, curiously he masked off the rear trunk lid around the mach 1 stripe and preserved the original stripe, lol. I know because there was pewter overspray on one spot on the trunk stripe.

The car in the 1980s at one point was owned by people involved in drugs and the car was confiscated. That's how the Toppenish police department ended up with it. Due to it's being well known in drug circles and could slip into drug activity and not raise alarm bells. I made overtures to the Toppenish Police about it, they would only confirm that yes, they did own it and use it.

The work by Rutt Enterprises was generally solid. They blacked out the bottom sides of the car for a 71-72 stripe kit but also put on the 73 correct stripe. Looked kinda goofy. I was 17 at the time and didn't know better. They also released the car back to me with wood screws holding the front plate directly into the front bumper! The car went back and we made them redo it with a correct front license plate bracket and repair the woodscrew holes.

If anyone in the community purchases the car, I'm happy to chat about my time with it. I tried to get some info out of Michigan on it. No dice. It seems all I could do is get back to say, 1985 with it. I always wanted to know how did it get from MI to WA in those missing years.

Cheers,

Stephanie

It is neat that you had the information on the car. A car is only original once and after that you don't know what you have. There is a local man here that purchased a 65 mustang new and has put over 1,000,000 mile on it yes one million. Several engines and lots of work. He had it totally restored and you would think it was hardly driven looks brand new. I agree that there are more people trying to make something out a pieced together mustang and say it is totally original.

Great info.

David

 

[secluff]

I am sure there could have been a change but mine was made late in May of 73. There is no way I could have peeled the stripe off painted it and put the stripe back on. I can take pictures of the marker light in back to show it has never been off. The frame on the light was factory black also.

I have been at assembly plants and things get missed or left off but even if they did not paint under the stripe black the frame should have been. Maybe we should look at VIN#s and see if we can find a break point. The low mileage one on ebay was also black. Another mystery to study!

Went looking at 73 brochure and there are pictures of two with blacked out side lights. The small picture in the corner looks like color but cannot tell for sure. I am 100% sure that mine and other were black. My car was shown one time in an MCA national show in unrestored and they did not say anything about the lights being incorrect but said lots of fasteners were and the car had never been apart. That is the reason it go put in a barn in 1983 I do not do politics, lol.

David

David, I'm not doubting you

Mine is an early car

Don't go by what you seen in the sales lit as 100% correct

I as thinking could it have been an assembly line thing? My car was made in Dearborn where was yours made? Could it have been color specific? When you google 1973 mustang mach 1 and look at the pictures some have it and some do not. I think I only saw one of the silver stripe ones that had silver light frame and painted under.

It will be another one of those things that will never find a reason unless someone has the work instructions from the assembly plants.

When the QS and ISO certifications started years ago most of that info got trashed to clean up the systems.

Be neat if we could locate one of those inspectors that put the yellow stamps all over the car maybe they could shed some light.

David

David, your remark about the assy plant reminded me of something I had wished before.

Wouldn't it be great to get someone on this forum either as a new member or a "Guest" that had actually worked at one of the Mustang plants. I'm sure we could think of a "Few" questions!

I know there have been a lot of questions/issues about the marker lamp paint/no paint with the 73 Mach 1 stripe.

There also seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the issue of two different shifter handles used on the A/T cars. Some stripped down 6cy cars had all chrome, some had the black camera case finish. Same with the well equipped Mach 1's. Some chrome, some with the black handle. Both of my Mach 1's are middle of the road option wise and have black camera case handles. My cousins 73 XR7 Cougar was "Loaded to the Gills" and had a chrome handle. A friend of his had a similarly equipped 73 XR7 and it had the black handle.

I know some of these things are trivial, others are the sort of things that make a lot of us think, "WTH" was going on at that plant!?

 

[Boss1Ray]

Secluff - not exactly what you mentioned, but check this out:

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-audio-interview-with-ford-assembly-line-worker-who-worked-there-in-1972-3

Ray

 

[jeff8877]

Stephanie,

Thanks so much for coming forward on this...great story and hope it protects whoever considers buying the car.

 

[StepanieS]

Thanks for the kind words Jeff.

I did find a few more pieces of the car from when I had it. The steering wheel below was on the car when I had the accident in 1990. Notice the nice oval shape to it. The shoulder belts had been removed before I got it, so it just had the lap belts. Thus, being hit at 45mph, my face hit the steering wheel hard resulting in a nice little scar under the right side of my mouth. This is probably the factory original steering wheel for 3F05H100003.

Also dug out the D2ZA 71 mach Motocraft replacement gas cap. I had it on 03 for about 10 years because I was sick and tired of the correct running horse twist off cap being stolen (happened 3x). Before the car left my possession I took the D2ZA cap off and put on a cracked twist off correct cap. The 71 cap stayed with me, lol.

I have more pictures, but I'll reserve that and detailed history on the car for someone who buys it and wants to know.

Cheers,

Stephanie

 

[secluff]

Secluff - not exactly what you mentioned, but check this out:

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-audio-interview-with-ford-assembly-line-worker-who-worked-there-in-1972-3

Ray

Ray, thanks for the link. Just listened to the entire interview. Was really informative and funny. Had a good laugh at the part where he starts to install the seat belts in car and notices a freshly lit joint in the ash tray.

A lot of what went on most of us already had a good ideal. Have had discussions with some Mopar and GM buddies who torn down and restored cars and found about the same things we have.

Just wish he had been at Dearborn so some of our "Mystery" questions could be addressed. Hopefully as our member numbers grow we will snag someone who either worked at one the Mustang plants or knew someone who did!

 

[Spike Morelli]

...strange that the original Ebay ad calls out the bodystyle as a "coupe", ( which it's not ), and the interior color as "cinnamon", ( it's Ginger isn't it? ).......

 

[StepanieS]

Yup.

5A Pewter Metallic factory color with the standard ginger non-fold down interior.

(Thought when I sold it the ginger carpets were turning green, lol).

...strange that the original Ebay ad calls out the bodystyle as a "coupe", ( which it's not ), and the interior color as "cinnamon", ( it's Ginger isn't it? ).......