TULSA, Okla. — A local man who bought back his beloved Mustang Mach 1 more than 30 years after selling it before heading off to college said it was stolen before it could be restored.
FOX23 spoke with him about how he had hoped to take it for a drive down memory lane at his 50th high school reunion.
“A beautiful car we had lots of fun with it with my buddies running around,” Brent Bushyhead said.
Bushyhead said he has been in the Mustang business from a young age.
“I stumbled up on a ratty old Mustang for $750 and the motor was about to go,” Bushyhead said.
He said he could just see the car’s potential and bought it with graduation cash he made in the summer of 1976.
“I limped that thing home from Prattville down 244 and smoke just a boiling hardly could see anything behind me”
He said he sold the car in 1978 when he went off to college and 28 years passed before he saw it again.
“A guy up by Hallot Speedway had it and he did not want to sell it,” Bushyhead said.
So he patiently waited and ten years later, he got a call from the man’s family who said his home had burned and the Mustang was damaged too, but if Bushyhead still wanted it, his old car was up for sale.
“It just so happened the car had been pulled up to the front porch and so his house was burnt to the ground and the car was scorched on the front end,” Bushyhead said.
Bushyhead said after a little auctionering over the phone, it was his again.
He said he had been accumulating parts over the years and had high hopes to hear the engine roar again, but sadly his dreams of restoring the car would have to take a back seat.
His friend, Daniel Harris, noticed it was missing in August off the property about a quarter of a mile east of the Tulsa drag strip.
“I was able to follow the tracks of where they came in and where they left when they took off with the car,” Bushyhead said.
Bushyhead said thieves cut a wire fence and hauled the muscle car off on a trailer. He said police worked to see if nearby businesses had any cameras that may have caught something.
Either way, the car held memories that reminds him and several of his friends of a cherished time in their life.
“Half the buddies who rode in that car with me, they are gone,” Bushyhead said.
He had hoped to share the reminiscent feeling with classmates at his high school reunion.
“My high school reunion is coming up, my 50-year reunion, and I vowed to drive that car, get it restored and drive that car,” Bushyhead said.
He said he has a more than $2,000 reward out for its return and is trying to remain hopeful it returns before the reunion in two years so he has plenty of time to finish the restoration process.