Mustang (auto) Convention in Tennessee This Weekend

[MrMustang1965]

Craig Hutain has spent $17,000 and put in about 1,500 hours over the past four years restoring the original look of his 1965 Mustang — right down to the "springtime yellow" paint and tachometer mounted on the steering column.

Hutain, who bought the Mustang while in high school, is one of thousands of Mustang owners gathering this weekend near Nashville to celebrate the car's 40th anniversary.

The Mustang made its debut April 17, 1964, at the World's Fair in New York. Since then, about 8 million people have bought them.

Hutain, 44, a commercial pilot from Montgomery near Houston, considers his work a "tasteful restoration." His long-suffering wife, Lori, would say only, "It takes a lot of patience."

The Mustang was devised by Lee Iacocca, then Ford division chief, and product manager Donald Frey. The early models were little more than Ford's smaller family sedan, the Falcon, with a new body.

But the car's image appealed to performance enthusiasts, and the Mustang became an American icon.

Frey, now 81, attended the Tennessee event and signed autographs like a rock star. One man proclaimed him a "true genius" — an accolade that drew a snort from Frey.

"The original team didn't have a lot of people or money," he said. "We did everything on the cheap. ... The first car had only one light that flashed when the turn indictor was on."

Frey said the first Mustang rolled out only 18 months after getting the go-ahead from top management.

"I remember that we hoped to sell 86,000 units because we made a little money at that level," he said. "We sold over 400,000 in the first year and more than a million in the second."

Frey now teaches engineering at Northwestern University, and his students frequently ask how he launched the Mustang.

"I tell them to understand their market," Frey said. "It's important to know what people want."

But Ford launched it with little market research. Names considered for the new car included Cheetah, Puma, Cougar, Colt and Special Falcon.

Joseph Oros, now 87, set the design standards for the Mustang.

"I told the team that I wanted the car to appeal to women, but I wanted men to desire it, too," he said.

A 1965 Mustang ad called it "a car to make weak men strong, strong men invincible."

Paul Russell, the current marketing manager for the Mustang, said a new V-6 lists at less than $20,000 and a loaded GT Coupe sells for slightly more than $30,000.

It sells well among baby boomers, but also among people younger than 30, Russell said. And about half its buyers are women.

Hau Thai-Tang, 37, chief engineer for the current Mustang, got his first look at the car as a child in Vietnam where it served as a prop at USO shows. "When you look at the 2005 car, you can see the family resemblance, but it's also a new car," he said.

Hutain's 1965 Mustang had about 126,000 miles on it when he started the restoration. He's added just a few because he rarely drives it on city streets. He and his wife towed it on a trailer from Texas to the Nashville Superspeedway.

"When I wash the tires, I take the wheels off," he said. "My car has never had a hose on it."