Each one of them has a story: there’s a bright orange ’65 Mustang that was brought in by the original owner for a little R&R. The red ’66 with the white racing stripes? A father commissioned a complete rebuild for his daughter after it caught fire. There’s a Mustang in the corner covered with shrouds to protect its new paint only to be sold when the restoration is completed; the owner needs the money to cover his wife’s medical bills.

Pete Rogers says business is booming.

^{Photo by Dave Good}

“We’re not just car builders here,” says Mustang Shoppe owner Peter Rogers. “We’re good listeners.”

And then, there’s the hundred-thousand dollar Mustang.

That’s not actually what Rogers’ team calls the shark-gray ’66, which is undergoing the mechanical equivalent of a heart-lung transplant and facelift, but that’s the dollar amount that the owner will have invested by the time the work is done. At the shop, it is known as the Tribute Car.

“That’s because the car’s owner was killed in an auto accident,” says Rogers, “and the guy’s father is picking up the pieces and finishing the car in his son’s memory.”

Rogers points out a small Mustang insignia painted near a door panel. It contains a replica of the son’s own handwritten signature.

“We did it all by hand. It took us three times to get it right. The owner said, if we’re gonna do this, then it has to look just like his writing.”

Rogers and a business partner bought the Mustang Shoppe in December of last year. Prior to that, he worked there for five years under the previous owner.

“I’ve been building cars since my teens,” he says. His first hot rod? “A ’67 Chevelle.” Mustangs came later.

“I purchased an ’83 5.0 when I was in college.” After Rogers moved to San Diego, he says a neighbor handed him the keys to his ’65 Mustang.

“He was from Paris and he was moving back to France. He said, you can have this car. I’m done with it.”

Rogers says he completely restored the car, sold it, and had enough cash for a down payment on a house. And the Mustang?

“It’s a race car in Australia now,” he says.

This project will take about a year.

^{Photo by Dave Good}

The cult of the Mustang is as popular now as it was in 1964 when the auto was introduced to the American public just months after the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

“It’s really sexy,” says Rogers. “It’s got great lines. It’s got character. It’s part of our history.”

Today’s Mustang is a beast with a 5.0 liter engine and electronics to rival a lunar rover, but when its ancestors rolled into car dealerships for the first time on April 17, 1964 they made history. Within the first 90 days of production, the Ford Motor Company sold 100,000 Mustangs. Part of it had to do with the muscle car feel in a vehicle that was tame enough for grandma to feel good about.

“The power-to-weight ratio,” Rogers laughs, “was just off the charts.”

The Mustang Shoppe restores and services vintage Mustangs. They can take a pile of junk with rotted upholstery that hasn’t run for years and restore it to original show room quality. It’s like putting bones into a time machine and watching a dinosaur come out the other end of it.

“Customers bring in a hunk of junk, and when they see their finished car, they have tears in their eyes.”

And, a $50,000 or so dollar dent in their finances. And concourse, or the highest level of nitpicking car show quality restoration, can take more than a year to complete and can cost even more. This is clearly a rich person’s sport, but Rogers has a theory about that.

“In this economy,” he says, “people want their memories back. They want to relive a time when they were happy, riding around in dad’s car.”