10 hours Ago By Clayton Seams
Article content The Ford Mustang is the most popular enthusiast car of them all . And it starts right here with this first-generation 1965 model. When the Mustang debuted, many auto reviewers of the time derided it as merely a sporty restyle of the staid and boring Falcon sedan.
They were right. And yet, they couldn’t have been more wrong. The only thing that came close to matching the absolute mania the Mustang caused in the mid-1960s was a quartet of young British musicians.
The Mustang was launched in April of 1964, and by March of 1966, the millionth Mustang had already rolled off the assembly line. It would take Volkswagen 17 years to build a million Beetles ; Chevy would take 39 to make one million Corvettes ; and Mazda would take 29 years to make one million MX-5 Miatas . The Ford Mustang? Less than two years.
And unlike the Beatles, who were only a group for 10 years, the Mustang has been in continuous production since 1964, outlasting every single rival that ever came against it. Sixty years after the first one was built, the Mustang is the last game in town for a sporty and affordable V8 coupe. James Dean and Marilyn Monroe were the icons of the American ’50s.
But in the 1960s, the largest and most enduring icon America produced was the Ford Mustang . And it doesn’t get much more iconic than my green-over-white 1965 V8 convertible test car. I was able to drive this car through DriveShare , which is basically like Airbnb for enthusiast cars .
Owners can make their cars available to renters for photo shoots, chauffeured drives, or, in my case, solo drives. DriveShare recently underwent an ownership change , and so joined forces with several other enthusiast car rental brands like BookaClassic.com .
For Canadians, there’s plenty of good news: we Canucks can finally rent cars through DriveShare while we’re in the U.S.A.
, like I did. But we can also rent cars in Canada through DriveShare’s Canadian platform, BookaClassic.ca .
It’s a great way to try out that special car you’ve always wanted to drive. A lot of these cars are used for weddings and photo shoots, but some, like Shaun’s Mustang, here, are built to drive. Shaun’s Mustang is a mild resto-mod.
The 289-cubic-inch (4.7L) V8 engine has a performance intake manifold and carburetor. The front brakes are disc units, and the car has a Bluetooth-capable radio that still looks vintage.
It’s nevertheless a decidedly vintage build, but all the important parts have been freshly rebuilt. If you’ve never driven a classic car before, a lightly modified Mustang like this one is a great place to start. Unlike many classic cars, the Mustang has thoroughly modern acceleration.
It’s not wildly overpowered like the 1967 Shelby GT500 Mustang I’ve driven before , too, but it has no problem at all accelerating to freeway speeds, and is comfortable with 80-mph (130-km/h) California traffic. You also have plenty of stopping power, but of course there is no ABS, and the pedal requires more effort than you might think. The steering is decidedly vintage .
This one uses a more modern steering box from a third-generation Chevrolet Camaro , but it’s still much less precise than the modern rack-and-pinion setups we’ve become accustomed to. There’s also a noticeable amount of chassis flex. Classic Mustangs are “flexi-flyers” on the best of days, but the open-topped cars are especially wiggly.
It feels like the front of the car is connected to the rear of the car by pieces of cooked spaghetti. But comparing this 60-year-old car to a modern one is a fool’s errand. Rather than talk about all the modern car features it lacks, I found myself revelling in all the classic charm it has , which no new car can match.
The driving experience of the Mustang is a lot like piloting an inboard ski boat. You have the view down the long hood ahead of you, the calming burble of the small-block V8 behind you, and the somewhat nautical ride of the soft suspension and tall sidewall tires. The Mustang is really a “pony car,” and the driving experience is more delicate than the brawny muscle cars that came afterwards.
There’s still plenty of oomph , but the driving experience isn’t dominated by the engine like it is in a big-block car. Some classic cars like the British MGB or a Corvette seem to egg you on to go faster and hustle them through twisty roads, but despite its sporty looks, the Mustang is most at home cruising comfortably along California Highway 1. And as I wafted down the California coast – southbound from San Francisco to Monterey, for Car Week – it was hard to picture a more perfect car for the occasion.
The Ford Mustang gave people only the parts of the sports-car experience that most people actually wanted : dashing good looks and heaps of horsepower. It dispensed with cramped cabins, high-strung engines, and complex suspension. And the Mustang has endured 60 years because it still adheres to this ideology today.
I love driving classic cars, and the ability to rent one while away from home made my trip so much more enjoyable. If you find yourself browsing BringATrailer, absentmindedly looking at cars you’d like to drive one day, check out BookaClassic in Canada, or DriveShare in the U.S.
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