Cabarrus is Mustang Country Now!

Cabarrus is Mustang Country Now!

BY CONSTANCE BROSSA, WITH KIMBERLY BROUILLETTE

A classic 1964 Ford Mustang, the first production year for the iconic car.

The Mustang Owner’s Museum in Concord is the perfect addition to Cabarrus County, long synonymous with the home of racing. The museum’s goal is to share the history and the heritage of the Mustang with everybody (both car and non-car enthusiasts),” said Steve Hall, the facility’s executive director and owner. “After the 50th anniversary events in 2014,” said Hall, “we (Hall of Georgia, and Rob Bramlett of California) felt that the Mustang needed to have a museum. We began discussions on the feasibility of the location, related activities and building an actual facility. I decided Concord was my first location choice, due to the success of the 50th anniversary event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, in combination with the great relationships we had with CMS, the Cabarrus Visitors Bureau and the city.” Right: The Mustang Owner’s Museum in Concord

The Mustang Owner's Museum in Concord

Phot: Jason Huddle

CVB President, Donna Carpenter (left), alongside Mustang designer, Gale Halderman (middle) and museum owner, Steve Hall (right) celebrate the official grand opening in April, 2019.

Photo: Jason Huddle

On Sept. 1, 2017, grading began at the site of the future museum location, about a mile north of the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Concord Parkway. A small, preview museum was open from April 1 through December 20, 2018, and located directly in front of the permanent site, while the new facility was being constructed. Hall, the owner of the Mustang Owner’s Museum, has declined to disclose the cost of the permanent facility; however, he said that the new facility was “built through private funding from unnamed sources. It is not a nonprofit organization. Although part of the initial concept discussions, Bramlett is no longer affiliated with the museum.”

Construction of the museum (not far from Charlotte Motor Speedway) ended in March, 2019, just in time for the facility to open its doors on National Mustang Day – April 17, to Mustang enthusiasts. There were 600 people at the event. Gale Halderman, credited with designing the first Mustang, helped to cut the ribbon. On May 3, 2019 100 visitors attended the museum’s opening to the public.

Gale Halberman, credited with designing the original Mustang, stayed to sign autographs for fans.

Photo: Jason Huddle

Halderman is an integral figure in the history of the Mustang (which was named after World War II fighter plane). According to his bio on aacamuseum.org, he joined Ford in 1954, first working as a designer for Lincoln-Mercury. He was inducted into the Mustang Club of America’s Mustang Hall of Fame in 2004 and received an Iacocca Award during the Mustang 50th celebration in Charlotte.

According to Hemmings Daily, Halderman received the Automotive Heritage Award from Antique Automobile Club of America Museum (AACA Museum) in 2018. The article went on to say, he “…also had a hand in the design of the galloping horse logo,” and that in March of 1964, “he watched as the very first Mustangs rolled off the assembly line… Eventually he took on all Mustang design work, overseeing every design change through the 1971-1973 generation, and was promoted to the head of the Ford design studio.”

Also attending the festivities, a man from Belgium whom went through the additional effort to have his personal

car shipped to Concord just to be a part of the VIP event. He was among many Mustang enthusiasts from all over the world, traveling from every inhabited continent. People came from 22 countries, including Brazil, Chile and Japan, and every European nation. The visitors who traveled the furthest distance came all the way from Australia.

The museum’s financial impact on the community could be sizable, if attendance at a recent major Mustang event is any indication. According to estimates, more than 50,000 Ford Mustang enthusiasts spent about $8.3 million in Cabarrus County during the 5-day celebration of the Mustang’s 50th anniversary in 2014. Cabarrus County Convention and Visitors Bureau officials estimated that the 50th

anniversary of Mustang fans spent $1.2 million in lodgings just in the county. Fans, organizers and media/sponsors from around the world spent another $458,878 in transportation costs.

The event also generated nearly $1.7 million in food and beverage sales, and $1.2 million in retail sales. In addition, the event generated $421,401 in local taxes.

Even before the 2014 event, Concord had an affinity for the Mustang. Daniel Carpenter Mustang Reproductions located directly beside the museum, for example, has been one of the world’s leading sources for vintage Ford parts, including the Mustang.

The Mustang Owner’s Museum includes a library filled with books and Mustang cover magazines, perfect for enthusiasts conducting research on their favorite car. “Mustang Icon” videos featuring interviews with people who helped shape the automobile’s legacy are also a good source of information.

By mid-May, 2019, 54 Mustangs were on display at the museum. “That number will fluctuate,” Hall explained. “It’s always going to be a little bit fluid. Nothing will be permanent. Some will be there longer than others.”

Cars in the center of the 40,000-square-foot museum represent six generations of the iconic vehicle, including a few with local ties. “The very first car visitors see is a completely restored Mustang owned by a gentleman who lives in Cabarrus County,” Hall noted.

“We want to showcase the owners’ cars, the true street cars, the fully restored cars,” said museum Social Media Director Jaron Cole in an April YouTube video tour of the facility. “We want to showcase the ones that have stories.”

Some of those cars with stories include the oldest Mustang at the museum – built prior to mass production of the car: a 1964 ½ vehicle. Black with a red interior, the vehicle was displayed at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York at Flushing

Parts of the museum pay homage to the fond memory of working on these classic cars at home in the garage.

Photo: Jason Huddle

Meadows Park in Queens. Perhaps not surprisingly, “That one will probably be here the longest,” Hall said.

Besides being the oldest “pony car” at the museum, the 1964 ½ version is probably the most expensive one onsite. “Our guess is (the cost) is between $200,000 and $250,000,” Hall said.

Tindol Roush Performance in Gastonia, one of the museum’s sponsors and the largest Roush dealership in the world for four years, has its own corner in the museum with some of its upgraded performance Mustangs. Lyle Sturgis, performance manager at Tindol Roush Performance, says their cars will be changed out about every six months. “These are very unique Mustangs,” said Sturgis. “We want people to see them and enjoy them.”

Tindol Roush Performance cars on display at the museum include “the first one that was ever built (by Roush) in 1995 (out of Jack Roush’s Museum) and the 2019 Roush RS 3 Supercharged Mustang (with 710 horsepower),” Sturgis noted.

During the museum’s opening in April, Sturgis said he sold three

Roush Mustangs – including a 2018 Roush RS 2 Track Pack purchased by a couple in Washington state.

Sturgis is beyond excited about Tindol Roush Performance being a part of the museum, a rare gem in Cabarrus County. A Mustang owner since 1967, Sturgis said he and Steve Hall had talked about the possibility of the museum being built here long before construction started. After those conversations, he said, “As an owner, I got all pumped and psyched.”

“I just think it’s a great thing,” Sturgis added. “We’re just tickled to death and proud to be a part of the museum.” Here in Cabarrus County, the residents are in agreement. It is an exciting time to have the world’s first museum dedicated to this longbeloved car.

The Mustang Owner’s Museum is located at 21 Carpenter Ct., NW, in Concord, with hours of 10am – 5 pm, Mon.– Sat. and Noon until 5pm on Sundays. For more information, visit www.mustangownersmuseum.com, or call (980) 439-5653.

Mustang Trivia

The Mustang’s history began in 1964. That year:

• The car’s base price – $2,368 – was featured prominently in the Ford Motor Co.’s initial advertising.

• The automaker originally forecast about 100,000 Mustang sales in the first year. More than 400,000 were sold.

• Ford sold 1 million Mustangs in the first 24 months after it went on sale – the fastest time for a new nameplate to produce that amount of sales volume.

• Just before it went on sale, the Mustang was featured on the covers of Newsweek and Time magazines and in commercials that ran simultaneously on all three major television networks.

• The same year the Mustang debuted, it appeared on the silver screen in the James Bond movie “Goldfinger.” And just four years later, the brand got another boost in popularity when a green 1968 Mustang 390 GT – featured in the 1968 Steve McQueen movie “Bullitt” – tore through the streets of San Francisco.

• Three years after its arrival on the automotive scene, a 500 Mustang fan clubs had formed. In honor of the Mustang’s 35th anniversary in 1999, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating the original model.

• Red has been the most popular exterior color on Mustang through the years, followed by blue, silver, white, black, green, brown and yellow. The 1967 Mustang was available in two shades of pink: dusk rose and Playboy pink.

• In the 1960s, Sonny and Cher had famed Los Angeles car customizer George Barris design for them his and her modified Mustangs that featured wild headlights, leopard-skin interiors and eye-popping colors. The pair sold in 2010 to a collector for $137,000.

• Black is the best-selling Mustang exterior paint color today, up 10 percent over the past decade, and it accounted for 28 percent of all 2013 Mustangs sold.

• The Mustang has served as official pace car of the Indianapolis 500 on three occasions – in 1964, 1979 and 1994. Benson Ford, grandson of Henry Ford, drove the Mustang pace car at the 1964 Indy 500. The Mustang served as official pace car of the Daytona 500 just once – in 2010.

• The Mustang has more than 5 million Facebook fans, the most of any nameplate, according to Ford.

• In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton drove his 1967 convertible (ice blue with a white interior) at Charlotte Motor Speedway during an event marking the 30th anniversary of the car.