Jonathan Auman's 1968 Ford Mustang Story
Jonathan Auman's 1968 Ford Mustang is more than a mere car — it’s family.
In the late summer of 1967, a maroon-colored Mustang — one of 413,000 brand-new Mustangs the Ford Motor Company produced for the 1968 model year — arrived by train in Siler City, destined for the sales lot at Welford Harris’s automobile dealership.
At the time, the dealership was in downtown Siler City, nestled behind the U.S. Post Office. Two years later, Harris would move his business to its present location on U.S. Hwy. 64, but it was on that now long-gone downtown sales lot where the striking new car would sit — a window sticker displaying an asking price of $3,100 — for a few weeks in the autumn of 1967 before it was sold and driven off the lot.
Most vehicles are purchased, driven, perhaps re-sold and driven some more and then, likely, eventually scrapped, with the particulars lost to time.
But not this 1968 Mustang. The car’s destiny, it turned out, would be a bit different than that of most — fated, instead, to become a beloved and cherished member of a local family.
“It’s just a legend in our family,” said Andrea Auman, whose husband, Jonathan, is the car’s current owner and caretaker. “It’s got so much history and I think that’s really interesting. It’s almost like the car is a person.”
“This car has been very important to me,” acknowledged Jonathan, who acquired it from his grandparents, Roy and Allene Coltrane of Siler City, who had owned it for the previous 39 years. Roy, a World War II veteran, died in 2018. Allene just celebrated her 94th birthday.
“What’s most special about this car for me is its legacy,” Jonathan said.
(photo credit: Peyton Sickles - The Chatham News + Record)
