THE MILLION-DOLLAR MUSTANG

FOR YEARS IT WAS LOST. NOW IT'S HOME. THE SURPRISING STORY OF THE 1964 INDY 500 PACE CAR.

- A .J . BAIME

 

IT WAS A SCINTILLATING MYSTERY. What happened to the Ford Mustang pace car that the company founder’s grandson Benson Ford drove to start the 1964 Indy 500? It was lost. Then it surfaced at an auction house, with a million-dollar-plus price tag. Then it vanished again. Then, less than a year ago, Bill Ford—the company’s current executive chairman—got a phone call. “It was Colin Comer,” the restorer and car writer, Ford recalls. “He said, ‘Hey, I’m at a show in Rhode Island, and there’s a car here you have to have.’”