Jay Leno Finally Drives Rare 1965 Ford Mustang That He Was a Passenger in 60 Years Ago

Ted Ryan, Archive and Heritage Brand Manager for Ford Motor Company, brings the 59-year-old Mustang to Jay Leno's Garage. The car comes with quite a story. Ford had over a hundred Mustangs, all convertibles, for display and ride at the 1964 World's Fair in New York.

For the fair,  Ford brought in Walt Disney to design a unique and memorable entertainment adventure. People got to see dinosaurs before actually seeing the all-new 'Stang.

This is one of the 24 Mustangs present there. Jay Leno remembers he dragged his father, who was not a car guy, to the event and was on cloud nine when he rode as a passenger in a white Ford Mustang, supposedly the same one that came to his show.

It is estimated that around 40,000 people sat in each of the cars present at the fair. There was a total of 52 million guests at the pavilion at Flushing Meadows, Corona Park in Queens, where the event was held. Ford sold all the cars present there to employees.

It may not sound like much, but sitting in a brand-new first-gen Ford Mustang in 1964 was a big deal. To make sure everyone heard about the Mustang, FoMoCo aired a commercial on every single television network in America at the exact same time. You could zap as much as you wanted. You still bumped into a Ford Mustang commercial.

The Mustang had borrowed pretty much everything from the 1960 Falcon compact car. It had the six-cylinder engine and the C-4 auto box, but with a sportier tuning. Ford rushed the car into production and even had a Falcon logo covered by a trim ring with the Mustang badge.

The pony car came with the reputation of a girl's car, and Ford did nothing to change that. In fact, they loved it. The first commercial showed a female librarian owning a Mustang. Furthermore, the first Mustang ever sold was purchased by a woman.

A school teacher from Chicago walked into a Ford dealership and drove home with a Mustang two days before the big reveal scheduled for April 17, 1964. Most of the examples sold during the first year of production were automatic.

Every single feature came for extra money. Jay Leno remembers that if you did not pay for the radio, you got the car with a piece of plastic in the dashboard that read "radio." The 1965 Mustang he features on the show had an eight-track player with a tour guide in eight different languages.

The driver could select the language through the radio selector knob, but the system was removed with the restoration. Furthermore, Henry Ford II's voice welcomed those on board, wishing them to enjoy their journey through time.

Even side mirrors were optional. The car in Jay Leno's Garage doesn't have them. It cost $23,068 (in today's money) when new, and it brought the Mustang with the six-cylinder engine, which was so anemic that it would make you doubt about deserving its place in American muscle car history. It was nothing to write home about, but it was reliable and economical. A bulletproof engine that never broke down.

Despite the setbacks, it became an instant hit, showing up on the covers of car magazines and breaking sales records. Ford's original forecast sales figures projected under 100,000 units sold during the first year of production.

The model hit the 100,000 mark in three months. More than one million Mustangs rolled off the production line in the first 18 months. Customers were going crazy. Everyone in the market for a car wanted a Mustang. The Mustang mania had just begun.

There was no need for a Hollywood A-lister to advertise for the model. It shot to stardom from the moment it set wheels on the dealerships' floor. It was a natural-born VIP in the automotive world.

Jay Leno takes the Mustang out for a drive down memory lane: "Suddenly, it is 1964!" he says from behind the wheel. It doesn't have power steering, but he doesn't really miss it much. The car is light and agile, handles well, and is stable on the road.

The Ford Mustang is definitely here to stay, and the automaker makes sure everyone knows it. Right now, it is the only V8-powered muscle car standing, and it will remain that way as long as there is demand for it.

Dodge killed the Challenger and swapped the V8 of the Charger with the twin-turbocharged straight-six Hurricane and an electric powertrain in the Charger Daytona. Meanwhile, Chevrolet retired the Camaro with no successor in sight.