Treasure Valley Mustang and Ford Club

Boise, Idaho

You are visitor number

since May 31, 1996

This page was last on October 14, 2003

Member Car of the Month - December 1998

Member Car of the Month - Click for larger image

The featured Mustang for December 1998 is Tim and Sandy's 1966 High Country Special Mustang fastback. Tim bought it in October 1980 after looking for a Mustang for a few months. He had a 1965 coupe in 1970 and decided he liked the fastback style a lot more. When he saw this car it looked pretty beat, with rusted out holes in the wheel wells of both front fenders. The paint was pretty well faded out and the person that owned it had a couple of kids that liked to use the back window and trunk as a slide. When Tim looked it over it had a funny emblem riveted over each front fender Mustang 2+2 emblem that said High Country Special. It was interesting, but didn't mean a thing to him at the time. He just wanted a fastback to fix up. The car wasn't for sale either but the lady was a little tired of its problems and Tim is sure that with the three kids she had she wanted something in a 4-door model car.

After having the car for a few years and doing some fixing up and repainting the car (of course not the original color), Tim began to find out some valuable information about the car from some articles from a couple of Mustang magazines. These High Country Specials were made for 3 years starting with the 1966 model year. There were 333 cars produced in July of 1966 at the San Jose plant. And after they put the trainload of cars together they were shipped to Denver, Colorado for many of the Ford dealers in the area and for dealers in western Nebraska, south-eastern Wyoming and western Kansas. The cars were also painted one of three unique colors that were not painted on any other Mustang or Ford car. They were Columbine Blue, Aspen Gold, and Timberline Green. There was no code number on the data plate so Tim did not know for many years that his was originally the Columbine Blue.

In an article in Mustangs and Fords magazine by Gerry Heasley, he wrote that in the first year of the HCS, 333 cars were built, of which 30 of were convertibles, 1 was a fastback, and the rest were coupes. However, the High Country Special Registry has found 2 documented 1966 HCS Mustang fastbacks, so this is still a very rare Mustang!

Tim's HCS has a 289-2V engine with a 4 speed manual transmission, 2.80:1 rear end, manual steering, AM radio, full length console, seat belt & warning lights visibility group, remote outside mirror.

Tim had the car completely stripped this summer and repainted its original color. It has new door panels, new seat covers, new rubber in the doors, new front windshield and trim, new headliner and rear window rubber, and many other miscellaneous new parts. The more Tim fixes, the more he sees that he needs to do. It's starting to look pretty good now, and Time feels that he probably picked up a pretty unique Mustang back in 1980 - not a Shelby car, but still a very collectable Mustang.

For more information about the High Country Specials, see Mark Hartman's High Country Special Mustangs site. The animated HCS emblem above is courtesy of his site.

If you have a story to tell about your Mustang or Special Interest Ford, please E-mail it along with a picture to webmaster2008@treasurevalleymustang.com or to our mailing address: Treasure Valley Mustang and Ford Club, PO Box 556, Boise, ID 83701.

Comments or questions?

E-mail us at webmaster2008@treasurevalleymustang.com

Back To Treasure Valley Mustang and Ford Club Home Page
or Tom Schmidt's Home Page or Mustang Links Page