"Another One
Out Of The Barn"
This original "survivor" Mach 1 was
originallly purchased by a 56 year old gentleman (Mr. Bowerman)
from Peter Pollen Ford Sales in Victoria, B.C. May 23, 1969. The
dealership is still there, but is now known as Suburban Ford Motors.
The original owner bought the car to tow behind his motorhome
for use as his daily driver during winter vacations in Arizona,
returning to B.C. for the summer driving season here. In 1982,
the owner was 69 years old and moved to a retirement village in
the Okanagan Region of B.C. and although he felt he was too old
to drive the car, he couldn't bear to part with it. He had the
car professionally dry stored at his brothers farm in a heated
barn where it remained until 1996 at which time the car had 75,000
miles on the odometer. However, a good portion of these miles
were from being towed behind the motorhome.
In the spring of 1996, the car was "discovered"
by the previous owner (Mr.'s Hornquist & Bailey) and after
much begging the original owner decided to sell the car. Mr.Bowerman
thought "I should be able to get what I paid for it, don't
you think?" (He originally paid Canadian $4476.02) they agreed
to purchase the car for $5,000. The car was uncovered and trailered
back to Nanaimo, B.C. She was then brought back to life (major
clean up and minor maintenence). I purchased the car in November
of 2002 with 81,500 miles on the odometer (for considerably more
than the original price) and invested about $3,000 in repairs
and maintenence. This consisted of new front end suspension parts,
shocks, exhaust and the like. Other than these normal wear and
tear parts, the car is completely original, never having been
in a accident or even scratched in a parking lot. The car probably
did not need everthing I had done, but I'm just really picky about
these things.
All the original tags and documents are still
in place, with particular attention to the final inspector "Henry"
stamp on the inside trunk lid and the DymoTape Dealer Inventory
number (9631)on the drivers inside door post. The spare tire has
never even been removed from the trunk and the original high beam
headlight alignment tools from the factory are still in their
place.
This is a true example of a survivor car, which
has been valued at over $26,000 today. Might as well be a million,
as she is not for sale. My guess is there aren't a dozen cars
equivilant to this one in Canada and maybe a couple of dozen in
North America.
