CONCORD, N.C., APRIL 17 -- Sun high, sky blue, Sam Cooke on the radio -- a perfect day for a
man to be cruising in his '67 Mustang with the top down, if he's lucky
enough to own such a car, which President Clinton is.
But Clinton couldn't. The presidency has its privileges but also its
price, and one price is that cruising is restricted to the back seat of
a mammoth bombproof Lincoln, bulky, boxy, black -- a hearse on steroids.
So Clinton did the next-best thing.
He came here, to the Charlotte Motor Speedway, to join his fellow
Mustang owners in tribute to the 30th birthday of America's classic
little ride. "Nobody lets me drive anymore," Clinton lamented, though he
was beaming. The Secret Service allowed him to pilot his Mustang 250
yards down the speedway track. That was better than nothing.
At the Arkansas museum, where the president's auto is housed,
they're taking good care of the First Mustang. "Works pretty good,
except the door still doesn't open from the inside," Clinton reported.
This provoked knowing laughter from several thousand owners and lovers
of Ford Motor Co.'s most memorable product since the Model T.
"What is it about Mustangs? It's called a love affair," said
Rochelle McNeal of Pensacola, Fla., proud owner of a '67 in the original
"Playboy Pink." Her husband Bob estimates he owns about 300 of the cars
at his Mustang Village and Salvage yard.
Bob McNeal figured Clinton was practicing good politics by visiting
the celebration. "I believe this is the first time a president has
attended a car show, and with a show of this magnitude, I think it's
worthwhile."
But it was bigger than that. For many Americans, the automobile is
more than mere conveyance -- it is freedom, possibility, identity. Your
car says who you are; driving a Volvo, for example, says: "My child
wears a safety helmet in the bathtub." Greece had its marble statues;
Rome had its aqueducts; America has its interstate highways. Our oil
conglomerates, shopping malls, suburbs and drive-thru restaurants:
Nearly everything depends on our cars.
And the Mustang was more than just an automobile. It was an
explosion of joy and libido. Before the pony car, there were dreadnought
Buicks and Chevys and Chryslers, titanic and finned. Or sleek vehicles
of impossible price, mostly foreign jobs you could buy only if you wore
an ascot.
Ford took its plebeian Falcon chassis and topped it with a sporty
little body, long of hood, small of rear, low of carriage -- just like
those phallic foreign Bond-mobiles -- with bucket seats, stick shift and
push-button radio. Yours for under $2,400! When the first Mustangs hit
the showrooms in 1964, there was a near-riot in Chicago. A California
man was so transfixed by the sight of his first Mustang, he drove right
through a plate-glass window. Lee Iacocca ("Father of the Mustang") made
the covers of both Time and Newsweek.
Iacocca's boss, Henry Ford II, expected to sell about 100,000 in the
first model year. Ford sold four times that number. The lights never
dimmed at the Mustang factories as Ford sold a million in record time.
The glamorous villain drove one in the James Bond movie "Goldfinger,"
and Steve McQueen had a blue one to match his eyes in "Bullitt." Wilson
Pickett recorded the testosterone classic "Mustang Sally" in honor of
this rolling sex symbol ("Ride, Sally, ride ... ").
Who said a car had to be either cool or affordable? That's a "false
choice," as New Democrats say. Mustang was all things to all people, and
thus fated, perhaps, to be Bill Clinton's car. The president owns a 1967
model, Hornet Green, with a white rag top and white interior. Not quite
cherry -- it could use a paint job -- but one fine ride!
As governor of Arkansas, Clinton liked to cruise from Little Rock
down to Hot Springs behind the wheel of his aqua baby, breeze ruffling
that big ol' hair, one hand gripping a burger while the other hand
popped a tape into the deck, classic rock blaring through the JVC
speakers as his lead foot fed the gas, shouting happily over the noise
to his terrified passenger. Boss! On his 46th birthday two years ago, he
squeezed into an old Hot Springs High sweater, Hillary Rodham Clinton
donned a school-days skirt, and off they roared.
Compared to that, why would anyone want to be president?
