The Motown song “Mustang Sally” was written on a whim by Mack Rice in Detroit, Mich., in 1965. It’s a classic story about an iconic American automobile.
Singer Della Reese told Rice, a close personal friend and songwriter, that she was considering buying a lavish gift (a Lincoln Continental automobile) for her drummer and band leader Calvin Shields as a 41st birthday gift.
Shields got wind of the plan
and expressed his sincere gratitude…but let it be known that he would rather
have a new Ford Mustang.
Rice said he hadn’t heard about the Mustang, but decided there might be a song in the situation. An early version was tagged “Mustang Mama.”
Rice played the tune for Aretha Franklin, who was renowned as the “Queen of Soul.” She suggested the song be retitled as “Mustang Sally,” because Rice used the name Sally in the chorus.
Mustang Sally, think you
better slow your mustang down.
You been running all over
the town now.
Oh! I guess I’ll have to put your flat feet on the ground.
Rice’s version of “Mustang
Sally” was moderately successful in 1965. He later handed off the tune to
vocalist Wilson Pickett, whose version was a giant hit in 1966.
The Ford Motor Company’s introduction of the Mustang is “the most successful new car debut in history,” according to George Mattar, a former editor at Hemmings Motor News.
Lee Iacocca is regarded as the “father of the Mustang,” Mattar said. Original owners claim to be charter members of the “1964-1/2 Ford Mustang club,” because the first models – both hardtops and convertibles – made their debut on April 17, 1964. Within the first week, 22,000 orders for Mustangs were received.
A great Mustang story surfaced in 2019, when Harry (Herk) Phillips, the car salesman who sold the first Mustang (albeit prematurely) in 1964, was “reunited” with the “Wimbledon white” Mustang convertible, bearing Serial Number 001, at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Mich.
Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press reported that the very first “showroom display model” Mustang was shipped to the George Parsons Ford dealership in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.
Phelan explained: “It took longer to get to St. John’s from Ford’s River Rouge assembly plant in Dearborn than to any other dealership (a distance of 2,180 miles), and Ford wanted every dealership to have a display model when sales began April 17, 1964.”
“Ford wanted all the display
models to be shipped back to Dearborn,” Phelan said. “That memo didn’t get to salesman Phillips at the Parsons dealership. Phillips sold
the car on April 14, 1964 – three days early – to Capt. Stanley Tucker of
Gander, Newfoundland. Tucker was a commercial airline pilot.
Phelan reported that “it was months before anybody at Ford headquarters knew Mustang No. 001 had jumped the corral and was running free.”
“The serial number didn’t mean anything to us,” Phillips said. “We didn’t know it was the first one made. We didn’t realize the significance of the car till Ford came looking for it.”
Amanda Jackson of CNN said it took Ford “two years of negotiating with Capt. Tucker to get the vehicle back. In exchange for the first Mustang built, Ford gave him the one-millionth Mustang – a 1966 model with all the bells and whistles.”
Phillips spent a career selling Ford vehicles, retiring from the dealership in 1995. He sold tons of cars during his time there, but none was more special than 001.
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