In the End, It’s the Miles That Matter

Posted on Sep 16, 2024 in Editorials | 2 comments

My cruise was set at 68 mph. For my very last drive in my Boss 302, not only was I driving on a relatively straight and flatter-than-Taylor-Swift interstate, I wasn’t even doing the posted speed limit. It was a stark contrast to the way I had spent the previous forty-two months in the Recaro driver’s seat of what was likely the best pony car that had ever been built on the day it rolled off of the assembly line in Flat Rock.

For forty-two months, every time that I made the 90-degree left turn out of my failed, half-empty subdivision onto the curvaceous country road that intersected the neighborhood’s exit, I did it in a full drift, burning up the excessively overpriced tires with banshee-like screams that acted as a rubber alarm clock for the entire street’s residents.

For forty-two months, I revved the Boss’ motor all the way to its previously unheard of 7,500 rpm redline with every launch, creating a soundtrack that was equal parts Beethoven and Stravinsky in its cacophonous composition.

For forty-two months, the speedometer’s needle rarely saw the left side of 85, and set up a near permanent residence to the right of a hundred any time that the Boss’ retro-inspired nose had an open road in front of it.

But not on its last day.

No, on its last day, I had to make sure I kept my nearly septuagenarian mother’s 2008 Ford Focus sedan in my rear view, and she’s not comfortable driving any speed that exceeds her age.

After making some half-hearted efforts to sell my car to an actual human being, I decided that the extra $1,000 or so I would have made by dealing with endless Craigslist shoppers just wasn’t worth it. I found a dealer in southern Kentucky that specializes in American muscle cars and was willing to pay me about $3,000 over the Boss’ going wholesale auction price. Done.

I made an appointment to drop off the Mustang and asked my dear mother to follow me for the 70-mile journey down to Corbin, KY, so that I would have a ride back home. As a result, a drive that might have normally taken about fifty minutes became a leisurely hour-and-a-half cruise down I-75 South. And as the red Focus drifted further and further out of sight, I was forced to slow down even more.

I wasn’t driving the Boss at 10/10, like I normally did. I was leisurely with my pace. I was relaxed. And that gave me time to think.

I thought back to the day I bought the Boss. It’s funny — I’ve named most of my other cars (My Fiesta, for example, goes by the name “Zippy”), but the Boss was always just The Boss. I remembered how my then four-year-old son spent much of that day asking me to take pictures of him with the car, like this one:

That photo, taken just moments after I signed the indentured serv… erm, loan paperwork for the Boss, show’s the very moment that my son fell in love with the Boss. (I believe it’s also Mrs. Bark’s first appearance here at TTAC.) I bought him his own remote control version to play with around the house.

He talked about the car from day one as though it were his — and I think that I started to think of it that way, too. I almost assumed that I’d keep it forever, and that maybe someday, when he had proven that he was old enough and responsible enough to be handed the keys, that it would be some rite of passage moment for him: the First Boss Drive.

As I drove the Boss down to the dealership that day, I wondered if I was stealing his birthright from him.

I thought about the very first day I drove on a track in my entire life. I’d been autocrossing for seven years, but I’d never taken a single lap on a race track. Then, one day, my brother told me that he had the opportunity to drive the new BMW M6 Gran Coupe at Nelson Ledges and asked if I’d like to tag along. I still remember thinking, “My God, I’m making payments on this car, I certainly cannot afford to crash it, and I’m doing nearly 140 mph on a track that looks like it was last resurfaced in the ’70s. And I love it.”

The M6 was embargoed until it came out in print, so I couldn’t share any photos from that day (which, if you follow me on Instagram, you know was pure torture), but I did have one great photo of the Boss under the bridge and I put it up that very day. It was shared by some Mustang fan pages and ultimately liked over 10,000 times. I now have that photo framed on the wall of my office:

That track day ultimately led to my going to the Boss Track Attack in Utah, where I met maybe the coolest young couple I’ve ever met, Tony and Jenna. We’re still friends, and we’ve both picked up ST hatchbacks since then, too. Being the fastest driver at the Track Attack gave me the confidence to try wheel-to-wheel racing just a couple of months later, and now that’s become something that my brother and I can do together, for as long as we can both safely wheel.

So, without even trying, the Boss changed my life.

I thought about how having the Boss meant I didn’t really have a car I felt comfortable driving in the winter, so I bought not one, but two beaters. The first, a 1995 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight (with supercharged 3800 power!), didn’t stick around long. The second, a Subaru Legacy Wagon, should have stuck around much longer, but I ignored some warning signs and it committed ritualistic suicide. I learned I lacked the mechanical knowledge (and the desire to acquire that necessary knowledge) to own a beater, which, in some ways, led me to pick up my Fiesta ST as a sensible alternative to the Boss.

But more than that, I remembered the moments when I drove the car simply for the joy of driving it. I remembered taking my son’s friend’s father, a quiet man who volunteered to fight for his country in the deserts of the Middle East, on a triple-digit jaunt through the back roads of Clark County just to see if I could put a smile on the face of a true American hero. I remembered the kids chasing me down urban streets in the worst parts of Cincinnati, just so that they could have a chance to give me a thumbs-up. I remembered the kid who nearly wrecked his Focus ST as he tried to both navigate I-275 highway traffic and snap a pic of the 302 at the same time. I remembered putting a wheel off on a snowy day in the Appalachians, only to be pulled out of a ditch by some friendly traveling Hispanic immigrants who didn’t speak a word of English. I remembered my kids begging me to leave the Flex and the Fiesta at home and to pick them up from school in the Mustang.

There were many, many more moments that have evaporated from my memory, but the emotions those moments created remain firmly ensconced in my heart. A Mustang will never have the refinement or cachet of an exotic car. There are still those who associate the brand with mullets and drag racers. But for me, for forty-two months, I lived every day with my dream car. That’s something that a great many people will never have the luxury of saying.

So when I finally arrived at the dealer, and as I prepared to sign over the title, I strangely felt much less remorse than I anticipated.

“You know,” the manager said to me as he started the paperwork, “we had a tough time valuing this car. Most of the ones we see at the auction have less than ten thousand miles on them. Yours has nearly thirty-five thousand miles. It’s got scratches. It’s got a small crack in the bumper.”

He shook his head slightly. “To be honest, your car scares me a little bit. I’m pretty sure that we won’t sell it in the winter, so we’ll have to hold onto it until the spring. And somebody who wants a Boss, well, they typically want a collector’s piece. Your car is kinda rough.”

And as he tried to diminish the value of my car in my mind, all he was actually doing was reminding me how much value the car had to me. I bought the car with one purpose in mind — to drive it. In that moment, I felt sorry for all the old men who had spent $45,000 plus additional dealer markup just so they could park their mighty stallions in garages. I know they appreciate their Bosses in their own way, but they’ll never know the joy I had driving the living shit out of mine.

That, in the end, is what made it so painless to give away my dream. Because my dream was never to own a Mustang. My dream was to drive a Mustang — and I did just that.

As for my son? A couple of weeks later, he made me realize why the car was so important to him. As he wrote his annual letter to Santa Claus at my kitchen table, making sure to include the latest and greatest toys, I saw him pause for a moment. He looked up at me and asked a question that only the pure heart of a seven-year-old boy could have conjured.

“Daddy,” he said. “If I asked Santa to bring back the Mustang, would that work?”

I laughed softly. “No, honey, Santa can’t bring you a car.”

“No, Dad. I don’t want it for me. I want it for you.”

And then I realized what I probably should have known all along. He loved the Mustang because he thought it made me happy. And all he wanted for Christmas was to make his Daddy happy.

So this time, when I go car shopping at the end of my FiST lease, I’ll be sure to involve both of my kids. A lot of the readers here have suggested that my future purchase of a Shelby GT350 is a fait accompli. I might have thought that at one point. But now I know that it’s not the car that matters. It’s the miles. It’s the experiences. It’s the journey. I want that journey to start with my young family at my side. We’ll pick the next car, not as a monarchy, but as a democracy.

Damn it, Boss. You’re still teaching me things, even after you’ve gone. Each scratch, each ding, each mile was a life lesson well-earned. Thanks for everything.