Edsel Ford Reminisces About Getting A Mustang For Christmas In ’64

Jason Reiss
January 1, 2014
Images Courtesy Ford Motor Company
Images Courtesy Ford Motor Company

Let’s say you’re the great-grandson of Ford Motor Company’s Henry Ford, and the son of then-Ford Motor Company CEO and President Henry Ford II, and it’s 1964. You can see where this is going, right?

It’s a great story about a true custom Mustang that was built and delivered to one very special boy – Edsel Ford – on Christmas Day in 1964, just a few short months after the Mustang had debuted to record sales levels.

The car was sent to the paint shop and covered in a pearlescent white coat that wore blue racing stripes on the top of the body and along the rocker panels, and delivered right to Ford’s driveway. The interior had a blue leather gut and aluminum trim throughout, with a HiPo 289 engine under the hood.

Other custom touches were the fender-mounted rear-view mirrors, a functional hood scoop, and unique chrome trim on the headlight bucket “gills”. The rear fuel-filler cap was covered with the initial EBF II; Edsel’s 16th birthday was December 27th of 1964, and the car was in the driveway just two days before – a present any youngster would be thrilled to have.

“I came downstairs that Christmas morning with my sisters, and my father indicated I should take a look outside,” said Edsel Ford, Ford Motor Company director. “This amazing Mustang was sitting in the driveway, and I immediately grabbed my coat and shoes and went outside to check it out.”

Image/s missing.

Edsel drove the car for the rest of his high school days and during college, but it was destroyed in an accident by a friend who had borrowed the car four years later, and thankfully, nobody was hurt in the accident.

The images seen here come from the Ford archives and are a neat trip back through time.