Fisher's Reg Johnson brings the same quiet pursuit of excellence to restoring classic Mustangs he once applied to creating embossed vice regal invitations at the Government Printing Office decades ago.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"I don't regard myself as a perfectionist.... but I do like to see things done right," he said.
Now retired, the 70-year-old former president of the ACT Chapter of the Mustang Owners Club of Australia will be one of more than 100 enthusiasts putting their cars on show as part of the chapter's biennial Canberra Mustang Show on the West Lawns of Old Parliament House on Sunday from 9.30am.
Interest in Ford's "pony car" is at an all-time high because the latest incarnation of the model will become the marque's hero car in Australian once Ford stops building the Falcon in 2016.
Wind the clock back 49 years and Mr Johnson's immaculate GT is an example of where it all began.
A 1966 model, it is essentially a refined version of the cars that first went on sale late in 1964 and are still regarded as the definitive Mustang of Wilson Pickett's Mustang Sally fame.
A California car, bought from a classic car dealer during a visit to Santa Monica in 2006, Mr Johnson's Sauterne Gold arrived in Australia as a renovator's opportunity.
Mr Johnson, who had bought the vehicle to replace the 1968 model he had owned since the 1990s, was not daunted.
"I wanted to do a full restoration for a number of reasons," he said. "One was to be able to say I had done it, another was cost and there was also the question of getting exactly what I wanted."
The rebuild, conducted to a strict budget, took two years with 12 months of that spent in a Canberra paint shop.
Mr Johnson, who did as much of the work as he could, was surprised by the finished product.
"When I drove it to a Mustang event in Melbourne they upgraded it to the concours class [for restorations of the highest possible quality]," he said.
While he and his wife Carmen enjoy the car and the social life that comes with membership of a car club, they use it sparingly.
"I'm 70 years old and past the stage where you have to drive a (hot) car everywhere or need a chick magnet," he said.
"We can drive it when and where we want to but I am also conscious of the fact it is a part of our superannuation."
The Mustang is much more than an investment however. Mr Johnson's passion for the iconic two-door dates back to the mid-1960s when he was a young printer and Norm Beechey and Ian Geoghegan were racing the big hardtops in the Australian Touring Car Championships.
The appeal is still emotional and, like Wilson Pickett's heroine, sometimes all he wants do is "ride around, Sally, ride".
"You feel proud when you've got a nice car under your bum," he said. "And I know every nut and bolt of this one."
