1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 Found 40 Years Later

By Dave Ashton

While many vintage pony/muscle cars are retrieved from barns and fields, in this case a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 was pulled from the bottom of a river, which had apparently been sat there for over 40 years.

The tipoff of the whereabouts of this particular Mustang came from a getaway driver, who mentioned that a few vehicles could be located at the Tualatin Boat Ramp, Oregon. The job was than on for scuba divers to salvage the car in question, with the aid of lift bags and a good deal of manpower.

As you can imagine, trying to hoist out a vehicle which has been sat at the bottom of a river gathering all types of sediment for decades has taken its toll on the bodywork. At 25 minutes into the video, you can see that the car is missing its engine and to be quite honest, is just about recognisable as a car, never mind as a 1973 Mustang.

Taking a total of two days to recover the car and with 8000 pounds of mud to be removed, it’s amazing the guys actually bothered with the project in the first place. What will be be most interesting from this point onwards is if anything can be done with the remains. It’s going to be a brave set of people who take on the challenge of any type of restoration. But, even if nothing becomes of this particular vehicle, it does show that in all the rivers and lakes, there could be valuable vehicles just waiting to be recovered.

 

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