kapracing
09-19-2014, 09:06 AM
I've been on the trail of this car since I've began doing my research. Story goes like this (as told to me by Jimmy Crump).
GSP decided to try another order of the Mustangs. The 10 1983's did not fair too well as 6 of the 10 were destroyed in service. Troopers did not respond well to the light 4spd cars.
That being said,
In 1988 GSP decided to give the Mustangs another try, so Jimmy and several other personnel from GSP were invited to the Dearborn plant to be presented the first couple Mustangs. Upon arriving Jimmy's first reaction was he hated the bumpers being Smoke gray. Ford thought because the first batch (the 83's) were painted that way that would be what was wanted... Jimmy said he hated to leave with out one (as much as he hated the bumpers). So, it was worked out that he would bring one back the rest would get blue bumpers.
I am in contact with the Trooper that was assigned the very second car (which arrived 10 days after the first one on May 19th) The second car is a story by itself. Jimmy hated those bumpers so much he waited until the second car arrived to do a photo shoot and press release ( I have those pics coming soon).
But back to car one...
It arrived May 9th and was assigned to Trooper 251 Sophie Thigpen. She was a driving instructor at the time. She made rank of Captain before retirement.
I am now in contact with her so hopefully she can fill in the blanks and hopefully she'll have some photos' of 8263 :D below is a black and white from Dearborn on the day of the presentation.
More to come soon...
GSP decided to try another order of the Mustangs. The 10 1983's did not fair too well as 6 of the 10 were destroyed in service. Troopers did not respond well to the light 4spd cars.
That being said,
In 1988 GSP decided to give the Mustangs another try, so Jimmy and several other personnel from GSP were invited to the Dearborn plant to be presented the first couple Mustangs. Upon arriving Jimmy's first reaction was he hated the bumpers being Smoke gray. Ford thought because the first batch (the 83's) were painted that way that would be what was wanted... Jimmy said he hated to leave with out one (as much as he hated the bumpers). So, it was worked out that he would bring one back the rest would get blue bumpers.
I am in contact with the Trooper that was assigned the very second car (which arrived 10 days after the first one on May 19th) The second car is a story by itself. Jimmy hated those bumpers so much he waited until the second car arrived to do a photo shoot and press release ( I have those pics coming soon).
But back to car one...
It arrived May 9th and was assigned to Trooper 251 Sophie Thigpen. She was a driving instructor at the time. She made rank of Captain before retirement.
I am now in contact with her so hopefully she can fill in the blanks and hopefully she'll have some photos' of 8263 :D below is a black and white from Dearborn on the day of the presentation.
More to come soon...