"My mother had to co-sign,” Bob said, “because I had no job at the time as I was just getting out of the service." The dealer sale price was $3,200, so Bob used half of his separation pay to come up with an $800 down payment, and took out a three-year auto loan of $72 per month (in 1967 dollars), backed by his mom. Bob proudly notes hos loan was completely paid off on time.

“When I first brought it home, people said things like, ‘Wow - where did you get that?’ and ‘That’s great!’ and ‘What’s that?’ – and, ‘Oh, that’s the new Mustang’?” Bob recalled. “The Mustang Fastback is just beautiful in Dark Moss Green. Some people who saw me at the stoplights would rev their engines and call out, ‘Hey – what’s under the hood?’ But by far, most people who looked at it were really impressed to see how beautiful the new Mustang was!”

As one might imagine after 53 years of ownership while rolling up some 175,000 miles, Bob’s Mustang has been a large part of his life. He drove it while dating his then-future wife, Gloria, for four years. The Mustang was there was when they got married, decorated with flowers by their friends for their honeymoon. They drove it on many vacation trips, including one to Minnesota and another to Yellowstone in the 1970s. Both of Bob’s daughters, Elizabeth and Diana, were brought home from the hospital in his Mustang. In 1972, the Mustang served the family again as the car that took Bob’s mother for 20 radiation treatments at Merritt Hospital in Oakland.

But like most Mustangs owned during that time, it also served as Bob's daily transportation for driving to and from work. Bob was a master A+P mechanic at the Oakland airport for 40 years. He had worked on 737s, 747s, DC-8s and DC-9s for Saturn Airways, Transamerica and Alaska Airlines.