The trip to Nashville for the Mustang 40th celebration
Although we had hooked up with the Ponydrive II folks the prior Saturday for a trip thru Tampa, we broke off and caught back up again with everyone Tuesday afternoon. We drove to Ocala for a tour of National Parts Depot and Jim Schmidts' awesome car collection. This collection includes cars of many years from early 1900's thru current, and many makes including Ford, Pontiac, Chevy, Lincoln, Cadillac to name a few. There are many truly unique cars, such as 4 or 5 with VIN 00001 for a given model year, the last 93 Foxbody, the 50 millionth Chevy produced among others. This was definitely a great way to start the trip.
From there, it was on to Riverside Ford in Macon, GA Wed AM, then a stop at Mustangs Unlimited outside of Atlanta. I managed to score a left outer web molding for my '83 project, a major find since I had been looking for months for one! Wed evening had us in Chattanooga picking up a few more Mustang folks, and Thursday AM we headed towards the Speedway for the opening ceremonies. We met with several other Mustangs in Motion groups down the road from the Speedway and headed in as one large group...awesome.
I was impressed at how far some of these people were traveling on both Ponydrives, one from the East, one from the West. It showed quite a dedication to the Mustang spirit! A couple of days traveling was enough for me, but I can imagine the entire trip must have been great.
For more info on the Ponydrive, check out the website at www.ponydrive.us.
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| Inside NPD's showroom, plenty of nice cars! |
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| Check out these rides..a White tourer is not exactly a common sight. |
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| Here's a couple more of the older cars..flawless. |
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| Onto the 50's, and more perfect rides. Notice the variety, Olds, Chevy, Caddy, etc. |
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| This pink Caddy would make Elvis proud! '56 Lincoln to the right, Buick beyond. |
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| Close up of the engine on this Buick reveals the detail found in most of the cars..every nut and bolt perfect. |
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| This '63 Chevy had a 409, 4 speed..and oh yeah, it's the 50 millionth Chevy made! |
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| This Merc had signatures from all kinds of celebrities both in and out of the car world...everyone from Lucille Ball to Lee Iacocca. |
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| Here's where all the resto work is done..a nice corner of the 160,000 square foot facility! |
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| The red '93 was the last to roll off the production line..the yellow '79 the 150 millionth Ford! |
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| A closer look at some of the signatures..a milestone car. |
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| Wed AM had us up bright and early, 05:30..chilly too, temp in the 30's. |
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| A stop for lunch in Macon GA, Riverside Ford. The local Mustang Club hooked us up with lunch. I'm sure the Chevy dealer across the street had to be a little bummed seeing this! |
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| Here's the legendary Atlanta traffic...everything they say it is and more. A sea of brakelights at 2 in the afternoon! It got tough to keep the group together at times. My car ran with no problems thankfully, this would have been a bad place to break down. |
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| A stop at Mustangs Unlimited, where they hooked us up with more food and drinks. Nice showroom and cool deals. |
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| After meeting up with the other groups Thursday AM, it was on to the track. Mustangs as far as the eye could see! |
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| Here a rear view. Mark tries to make a traffic stop in his unmarked FHP car but no luck. |
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| A view at the track entrance..the trailered race cars would have a nice display inside. |