Gelica Peralta's 1967 Ford Mustang Convertible "Dream Car"
Had the world not been gripped by the COVID-19 Pandemic at the start of the 2020 car show season, Blue Oval fans around the world would have been out celebrating National Mustang Day on its “official” birthday of April 17. Do you know of any other automobile that is celebrated globally each year on a specific day? That’s the power of being an icon. What makes the Mustang so iconic is that it has had so many fans of all ages for so many years and from all walks of life and from all over the planet – there’s really nothing else like it. Anyone who doubts the Mustang’s lasting appeal need only to read the email we received below from 21-year-old Gelica Peralta, a young lady who just so happened to have found her dream car -- a 1967 Ford Mustang Convertible -- at the age of 19 while attending a car show with her father:
“Hi, my name is Gelica Peralta and at the age of 19, I got my dream car; A 1967 Ford Mustang. Let’s start from the beginning …
“During my childhood, I grew up with my younger cousin and younger sister, and we were all very close in age. One of my favorite memories is how we spent almost every day playing toys in our family room. We all shared toys growing up, so it was a mixture of your typical ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ toys. I wasn’t too much of a girly-girl growing up, and most of the time I found myself building Legos or racing Hot Wheels with my cousin. My cousin was obsessed with Hot Wheels to the point where he had bins filled with these cars. Distinct memories I have include days when my cousin and I would pretend we were race car drivers and race our cars across the floor of our family room. This would eventually lead us to memorize every car we had as far as the make and model … and this is how my passion for cars began.
“The story of how I fell in love with Mustangs is quite interesting. I grew up with a few car enthusiasts in my family. One of them was my dad, and the others were a few of my uncles. It’s pretty funny because most of them are Chevy guys and have owned or own Camaros, Chevelles, etc. Because of that you’d think I would be a Chevy girl, but as much as I like Camaros and all, there was something about Mustangs that drew me in -- specifically the first-generation cars. Growing up, I went to a lot of car shows with my dad. I would spend a lot of time walking around the shows and taking photos of my favorite cars. Looking back at my photos, I realized a lot of them were pictures of Mustangs. Maybe it was the way the car looked, the body lines, the story of how Mustang came to be, and everything in between. “That dream day came on March 24, 2018, and my life was changed forever. My dad and I attended the GoodGuys Car Show in Pleasanton, California, which is a big car show in the Bay Area consisting of about 2,500 cars and held four times a year. It was just another average day for us walking around and looking at cars. As we were leaving the show due to the rain, in the parking lot -- there she was. My dream car, with a ‘For Sale’ sign on the windshield. It was love at first sight. It was fate. At age 19, I didn’t hesitate; I pulled out a good amount of my savings, got a loan from the bank, and the rest is history.
‘So, a little back story on my car: It’s a 1967 Ford Mustang, red convertible, white top, C-Code with a 289 4-barrel engine. She was assembled in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 13, 1967. Her original color was Acapulco Blue. The previous owner repainted her red and had her mostly garaged for 10 years. He wasn’t too sure how many owners there were prior to him, but he knew the original owner drove her all the way out from Chicago. My guess is that I’m probably the fourth owner … and the last — Haha!”
