This last Sunday was the 15th Annual Mustangs at Queen Mary car show in Long Beach, CA. Held on the beautiful Queen Mary park grounds with downtown Long Beach in the background, this Ford-only event boasts over 340 cars with the primary focus being the Mustangs. The car show is put on by the Beach Cities Mustang Club of Southern California, which is California’s largest Mustang club, boasting over 600+ members.
2010 Formula D and D1GP World Champion Vaughn Gittin Jr., along with fellow Mustang drifter and currently second in points for the 2011 series Justin Pawlak were on hand for the show. Pawlak has one last chance coming up at the Formula D finals in Irwindale to take steal the number one spot away from current points leader Daijiro Yoshihara. Gittin's beautiful 1969 Mustang RTR-X stole the show with a host of on lookers. The RTR-X is powered by a 2011 Mustang 5.0 Coyote with individual throttle bodies, but besides that, is still relatively stock
Gittin's competition Mustang also made the show and while it stayed in the grass, there was plenty of Mustang drifting going on in the parking lot...via the scale model kind.
Rarely do you see a GT500 of any year that isn't meticulously restored and kept in a climate controlled bubble and be worth well over $100,000.This Mustang has been family owned for 38 years by mother-in-law LaVerne, who bought it from a neighborhood friend in 1972. LaVerne drove her daughter to school with it and was a daily driver up to 1988 when she was 63 years old. The Mustang failed to pass SMOG in 1993 and stayed in her garage until 2004, when LaVerne passed away and was inherited by her son-in-law.
There were over a dozen Bullitt Mustangs at the show, ranging from the Steve McQueen era 1968, New Edge, and S197. These spoilerless Highland Green Mustangs came from Ford with a few additional upgrades over the standard Mustang, including additional horsepower and improved handling.
One of the few non Mustangs was this Thunderbird owned by Kevin. This same car transported his wife to her cancer treatments in 2000 and additionally his son's treatments in 2006/2007. Unfortunately, both Kevin's son and wife has since passed away and this Thunderbird was built in their memory. The color is actually House of Kolor Sunset/Sunrise Orange pearl paint that is ment to mimic the same color as the Leukemia ribbon.
Want to talk about a tight fit? Superformance had one of their Cobras on displayed that is crammed with a 2011 Mustang Coyote engine. While I was assured that the fitment was tight, that it did make it into the engine bay of the Cobra with little additional fabrication. We will be bringing you more on this Cobra shortly.