Patina Over Perfection, Jon Davis and His 1965 Mustang Pony

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Introduction to Episode

1:00Coming up today on this episode of Ford Mustang, the Early Years Podcast. It was sitting on the side of the garage for a long time in the sun. And they talked to my cousin about, you want this car? You want to buy this car? To my older cousin. And I'm like, they want to get rid of it? I'm like, I'm not really old enough to be buying a Mustang, but I guess because it's sitting out in the garage and because the Jaguar and the Packard are in the garage, the Mustang's sitting out in the sun, they just wanted it gone kind of thing.

1:33Right. Wow. So I just adored a Mustang. You pop the hood and you can look right down into the ground. Right, right. On the thing. You can see everything, every little bit of it. You can practically sit in it or stand right up in the bay. Yeah, in the engine bay. I talk about that all the time. So I was just tickled at how simple it was.

1:57Welcome to the Ford Mustang First Generation, the Early Years Podcast. Every week we will have conversations with collectors, experts, weekend warriors, and those in the know when it comes to first generation ponies. Start your engines and let's go. All right, Ford Mustang community, do you have a classic Ford in Southern California? Maybe a Mustang, an F-Series, or maybe even a classic Falcon or a Galaxy? Now I'm looking to put real classics on real sets. Photo shoots, commercials, film, premium productions.

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John's Mustang Story

2:46Today's guest, John Davis. Now, he can trace his Mustang roots back to the original owner. Now, how cool would it be if we could all step into the time machine? John, I'm excited to chat with you. Welcome to Ford Mustang, the Early Years Podcast. Thanks for having me, Doug. Appreciate you with your time talking about the pony. Well, initially, my wife and I, we called Pony. Okay, all right. That's cool. So you have a name for your classic ride, and it's just Pony. Yeah, well, we got a lot of cars around here, and Pony's kind of made it. We used her during the – drove her around during our honeymoon when my aunt and uncle lent it to us.

3:21And subsequently, a year later, we ended up purchasing that car from him. That's awesome. Down in Phoenix. That's where we picked it up. We'll go back to the original, the origin story of not only you're buying the car, but the original owner. You'll talk to me about what you know about the original owner or the original title. And then we'll talk about the code on the door plate and some other stuff, too, and maybe some mysteries that may or may not get solved today. So if you're in our audience and you have one of those door plates, it's like, well, my car says Wimbledon white, but it's painted green.

3:54I'm not really sure what's going on here. We'll figure all that stuff out as well. So, John, where do we start? Well, let me start here. Let's see. As of the recording of this, we're at the end of January of 2026. I'm sitting in Southern California, not to make you jealous, but it's about 70 degrees and sunny. And you mentioned to me that there's about 10 or 12 or 13 inches. Oh, we're looking at about 20 degrees currently in Michigan, and we're looking at about 14 inches of snow. So a lot of cars in storage. I pulled Pony out just to get some VIN numbers on it. He looked cold out there for a second, but doesn't see the salt.

4:27No, I completely get it. So if you're listening to this thinking, when is spring coming? Well, it's just around the corner. So just feel comfortable that it'll just be a moment or two, and then it'll be winter again. So let's get those cars used. I mean, that's the best way to get them exercised is to take them out of the garage every once in a while. I need to listen to my own lessons here. Get it out as often as possible.

Acquiring the Mustang

4:51All right.

Acquiring the Mustang

4:51Let's go back to John and talk about his story about his acquiring the Mustang. But even more fascinating, when we originally connected on Facebook, John, you had said, I need to talk to somebody, and this person was maybe the niece or the nephew of the original owner of the car. You got it. Exactly. It was the niece of the first owner. Right. And just actually talked to her today on the phone. All right. Tell me what you know. Tell me what you know about your Mustang. So, well, it came out basically assembled in San Jose, California.

5:22We're looking at the date on our birth date of August 12th, 1965, right in that week of the Watts riots. That was kind of a time going in the area. It's a 71 market. So it's an L.A. market car. It's a notch back. She's a 65 notch, 65A, two-door hard top. And essentially, I know that, so my aunt's neighbor was Jerry. Jerry had this one-acre lot in the Sonoran Desert in South Phoenix on the steppe of South Mountain.

5:56And my aunt built a house right next to Jerry. So we went out there one time, and this Mustang sitting out there in the desert, essentially, had a great paint job back in 1985. So the first time I saw a pony was about 1985, and it was Jerry's pull-behind for his RV. And he bought it from his brother, who bought it brand new in L.A. And so the first owner's name was Richard Raymond Robbins.

6:27Everyone calls him Uncle Dick. So Uncle Dick owned it. He had six kids. And actually, one of his kids is looking to reach out to me and tell me maybe some stories. I didn't get in time to actually get a hold of Dennis. But Dennis may be in the future. I'm glad that one of the six kids did, for your sake, that one of the six kids didn't step up and say, I want this vehicle now. Can you imagine that none of the six kids took claim to it before you made an offer to the next person or the next person? I think what it was is Jerry needed a pull-behind for his – Jerry was a World War II diesel mechanic in the Navy.

7:06And Jerry was the best kind of neighbor where all the guys hung out at Jerry's house to work on cars because he was the coolest cat around. He even put the mirrors up on the fenders when we had it. And my Uncle Bill brought them back, you know, back onto the window wells. But he was kind of – and it had the straight six in it, so it wasn't too heavy to pull behind their RV. And so there's a tow bar on the front of this car, you know, essentially. Oh, my gosh. That's great. You know, where he was just pulling this thing behind.

7:38And so I – so and then – so Jerry Robbins was the second owner.

7:45Everyone just loved Jerry. And his family still reaches out to us here, or I reached out to them, and I have their numbers. They're really great, really nice people. Yeah. And what happened was in 1989, 1990, my brother got a gift to go up into, like, a glider ride north of town. And Uncle Bill pulls up with the Mustang. And I just couldn't – I was like, holy crud.

8:18Somebody – I can't believe Jerry sold you the Mustang is what I thought. I was like, holy crud, I can't believe you got the Mustang from Jerry. I'm like, why did he even sell it? Like, what – like, why? Right, right. You know, because it was one of these super cool pull-behinds. And I talked to Jerry later on about it, and he said, oh, it didn't have the 260 in it. 289. Oh, was it a 289? Okay, I didn't know if it was – You're talking about a V8, or are you talking about a 6?

8:48Yeah, he didn't have the V8 in it. Got it. 289, right. Yeah. And therefore, he thought the 6 was just not cool enough to, you know, just cool to tool around in. I'm a big fan of the 6 because I don't like the front – I like that it doesn't front plow, you know, in turns. And it's very, very predictable car, you know, in making those turns. Now, I'm just fact-checking myself here because I just typed into Google, did Ford make a 260 for their Mustangs?

9:19And it says, yes, Ford produced a 260-cubic-inch V8 engine for the 64 1⁄2, which was available from the model's launch in 64 through the end of July 64. So, then it says the 164 horsepower V8 was the initial performance option before being replaced by the 289 later in 1964. So, you are 100% right. There was a 260. We just got the years wrong. Unless it was a 64 1⁄2. So, it's a 65, but it has – because they shipped all the parts out early to the West Coast, it has a 64 1⁄2 hood.

9:56It has 64 1⁄2 parts on her. Even though it was built – assembled in August of that year, I actually was kind of surprised looking at that stuff. The drivetrain has been swapped at one point in time. I have a 66 driveline in it from something. Right. You know, it's got the two-bolt starter on it, you know, and it's the still 200 on it. But that's – when I'm going to a shop, I always say that – they say, what part am I looking for?

10:26It depends what part of the car I need to park for, you know, to tell them what it is that they're looking for. I totally understand. I spend a lot of time at National Parts Depot. We have a walk-up counter here in Ventura near me in Ventura, California, and they're always asking me questions. Some of the things – like I have a Ford F-350 that's got a 460 engine in it, but the door plate says it was a 352 or something. I don't even know the exact, but it wasn't the right engine. No discrepancy. Yeah, some discrepancy. So I'm like, well, I know it's got a 460 in there, so I don't know what it came with originally.

11:01So let's go with the 460. So, okay, tell me more. So go back to your story about your – the uncle and the person that's driving it. Oh, this is great so far. I'm enjoying this. Yeah. So Uncle Bill pulls up with it. Uncle Bill is one of these guys that – actually he was a really interesting guy all on his own in that he was – for Union Dynamics right out of college, so he was an explosives expert. So he actually worked at Dow Chemical developing the first airbags for all – the first airbags ever out of a steering wheel back in the 70s.

11:35Wow. So – and at the time, the shoulder belts just came into vogue, so they cut the program thinking, why would you ever put explosives in the steering wheel kind of thing? Understood. Yeah. Yeah, so that's how my dad met my uncle. They were – the explosives part, it was out of town, you know, and so, yeah. So Uncle Bill shows up – well, we'll cut off on that. But Uncle Bill shows up with the Mustang, and I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. And, you know, there's a picture of – I sent a – basically there's an early picture of the first time that I'm leaning up against the Mustang when it's in our family,

12:12and got a chunk of that moment in time. And Uncle Bill also is a car guy. His father worked on Corvettes here in the Valley. He was the guy to fix Corvettes at the time in the Valley, and my – his brother-in-law was the best painter in the whole – in the Phoenix Valley. And that was over at Rudolph Chevrolet at the time. So basically Uncle Bill's got cool stuff. All right. He's got a – I was going to say, just make the transition for me if you would.

12:46I like the story, but I want to leave Chevy behind. I want to start talking about Corvettes. Yeah, absolutely. So tell me – so you leaned up against the car, and at what point did you realize this car I'm leaning up against is going to be mine? You know, I – it was sitting on the side of the garage for a long time in the sun, and they talked to my cousin about, you want this car, you want to buy this car, to my older cousin, and I'm like, they want to get rid of it? I'm like, I'm not really old enough to be buying a Mustang, but I guess because it's sitting out in the garage and because the Jaguar and the Packard are in the garage,

13:23the Mustang's sitting out in the sun, they just wanted it gone kind of thing. Right, wow. So I just adored a Mustang. You pop the hood, and you can look right down into the ground on the thing. You can see everything, every little bit of it. You can practically sit in it or stand right up in the bay. Yeah, in the engine bay. I talk about that all the time. Yeah. But it's just – so I was just tickled at how simple it was. All right.

Restoring the Mustang

13:47So what year was that, that the car is sitting by the side of the garage before you – Jeez. They had it out in the desert from 1993 to, gosh, 2015. Okay. You know, it was sitting back outside. So when was the deal made? When did you discover that they were actually going to be serious about getting rid of it, and then when did you acquire it? Well, we wanted – my wife and I were going to get married out in Phoenix, and my dad fell sick.

14:22So we ended up pushing off the wedding and having it in Michigan after all. So my wife and I decided to take that window of time we were going to get married and make it our early honeymoon. Okay. So my wife and I took Pony, and we took it – basically, we took it for a full week across the southeast Arizona and just fell in love with it. Wow. So just what happened was – gosh, I don't know if you want to hear – they have a huge story of going down the San Pedro River Valley and it almost rattling apart on us.

14:58Well, certainly share some highlights. I'd love to hear a little bit. Oh, yeah. So we're coming east out of Phoenix, going over to Superior. We were going to get married at Boyce Thompson Arboretum out down there, and we're just kind of enjoying that day that we were supposed to get hitched. And – but from there, I asked my aunt and uncle who were lending us this car for our honeymoon, this is supposed to be a treat, you know, of just – I've always wanted to drive this car around. Let's take the Mustang with my new – future bride and just go for it.

15:30And so we go over to Superior, spend time there, and then we head south towards Mammoth. And it's all old mine – open mine country where there's just striations of all these minerals that go down, and you're actually coming from a high point and coming down into this valley. And my uncle, who lent me the car at the time, said, you should go from Mammoth to Benson or to Wilcox. You should follow along this river road, and it's just so pretty is what he said.

16:00So pretty. And he's like – With a modern suspension, it's probably pretty. He took it – he didn't tell me that he took the Grand Cherokee down this road. Right. You know, he just lent me his car and said, yeah, you should take – go down this road. And I thought, well, you're lending me the Mustang. I should know about – you know, you probably have an idea of whether this is going to be a good idea or not. Right. So we take off on – from Mammoth, and it's – we're kind of crisscrossing a part of the river at times. And we – at times, we had Cuda Mundi, like, running right alongside of us in this valley, and it got dark.

16:39It was only – we only had to go 27 miles, but that 27 miles was harrowing. So the car felt like it was rattling apart as you were driving down the line. Yeah, we had to go so washboard at times. Right. You know, at one point in time, we had to cross the river. Like, and I was like, oh, crud, we are floating down this river. We got to hit this thing full speed. So I just – I bottomed her out so bad. You know, I dented – I hit the axle to the exhaust and dented it, you know, a bit, just rocketing it.

17:10It's not – it's not my vehicle yet, and I'm just kind of bad about it. So we hit these – this trail, and it starts getting dark on us. And I – we're going down this road, and the washboard's so bad that it's rattling – rattling the car in a bad way. So I had to get going about 40 miles an hour just to hit the tops of these bumps so it didn't feel like I was going to just destroy this car all completely. Yeah, when in doubt, just go faster. Well, too fast was just too much, too, and so I had – about 40 was good.

17:42Right. But the problem was the lights were clicking on and off. So I was losing my – the headlamps. And this is just not the place where you want to ask for help. You know, there's just people that don't want to be found that live in this region. Right, understood. And so I was not looking forward to going up to any – I would be – if you're going up to somebody's house in this area, you're holding your hands above your head, you know, just to – Make sure they're not packing heat or anything. Yeah. So fast forward to the end of that – to the end of the trail. So you actually – did you survive unscathed, both the Mustang and the passengers?

18:16The rear drum completely fell apart on the inside. You know, it was completely – you could hear the springs and the tap, you know, the – or the back – oh, gosh, what do you call it? The self-backer off or the self-adjuster. Self-adjuster was all – Yeah, the self-adjuster was all loose in there. So we pull into Benson finally, and I just can't believe, you know, we're – we made it. We could see the glow of the city, made it down to Benson.

18:47Benson, I turn on the TV, and it's – I can't believe it. It's one of the most weird things that's ever happened to me in my whole life. It's somebody I know is on the TV. And then I – the next person on the TV is somebody I know. And I'm like, did we not make it out of that valley? I can't – like, what is – like, did – what is going on here? And it ends up being some friends from the – on the Food Channel that they were on a reality show. And I didn't even know that they were on a reality show that – and I just couldn't believe the first thing was happening like that.

19:19But in the morning, I hitchhiked to Napa to go – and I pop open – you know, I drop up – drop the – I have all the tools I need to fix her. I pull off the drum, see everything – all – everything clink to the ground. I take all – you know, essentially pulling apart stuff, and I hitchhiked to the Napa in Benson. John, you were doing – you were doing him a favor. Those parts were going to come off anyway, so you just replaced the Blake's brakes for him. Well, I went there, and I said, I need a wheel cylinder kit or a wheel kit for, you know, a 65 Mustang.

19:51And they were like, oh, we don't got that, you know. But the guys were so cool, they found a spring kit out of – for a Toyota truck that matched up enough. Right. So I got back, hitchhiked back to the car, and basically – and I had the whole thing put back together before my wife even woke up. Wow. That's good. That's good. Yeah. Thanks, man. So how far beyond that time, that trail, that story that you just shared, how far beyond that did you actually say, you know what? I've destroyed this back rear brake.

20:21I'm going to buy this car. Well, you know, I kind of always want – I just didn't have the means. I was kind of – you know, we're always – I don't know about how much I can afford to just drop on an extra car. You know, I'm always kind of – Especially one that needs some work. Right. And probably need work. Well, Uncle Bill had all the parts. You know, he had everything for that thing. He just didn't have the – didn't put the time into putting all the upper lower control arms on and everything. But he came – I came home with that car with everything I needed to fix it.

20:55All right. So in 2015? Is that when you bought it? Yes, sir. So we got married in 14, but bought it in 15 and ended up – In 2011. Oh, well, my wife says 2011. So my – Your maths are wrong. Man, I'm screwing this up on a – See, behind every Mustang owner is the person, the supporter, to tell you the truth. That means that we drove it around in 10. Okay. We drove it around in 10.

21:25Got it. And you bought it in 11 from – In 11. That's exactly right. All right. So what have you done to the car since you have bought it? I know you've fixed the brakes. How much stuff have you done to it since you bought it? So far, we've – I've – upper lower control arms. New grommets on sway bars. New front stabilizing. Basically, all – any kind of bushing that was split. Pulled that off. And it's funny. That pretty much would describe any car that has been around since the 60s or 70s or maybe even the 80s.

22:01You need to replace at some point – and I got to listen to my own story here. You need to replace the bushings at some point. You probably need to replace a lot of the bearings also that are wheel bearings or bushings that are on your suspension. If you feel any loose steering or anything like that or if you're hearing any metal against metal, it's probably because you've lost some bushings along the way. Yeah. It was one of those things where I kind of know a little bit about older cars. You know, I got a 51 Mercury Coupe too.

22:34You know, and my dad's side is a Ford family. You know, it's a big – from World War II beyond kind of working with Fords. From Willow – my grandma worked at Willow Creek, you know, during – So you mentioned that the car was sitting next to the garage. You had the Jag and the other car sitting in there inside the garage, but sitting – this is sitting next to the garage. So what's talking about that? So the interior was bad. So, yeah, the original floor, black vinyl floor, the carpet shot is brown, you know, and the original interior is actually still in there.

23:11But the headliner is great. Great headliner. That was kind of surprising. Out of everything, the headliner is perfect. On the thing. So also done – basically re-pulled the interior, has a new carpet set, had to redo the heater box in there. Yeah, of course. Had to, you know, had a leaky – oh, geez, heater core in it, you know, that spilled all over our pizza box one afternoon. Right. You know, and so we've done a lot to her. It's been a great car, though.

23:44You know, everything's – I love the reckless build of it with cotter pins and all, you know, that you're like, everything's held together with cotter pins, like on the clutch mechanism. You're like, man, that's a moving part. You've got to keep an eye on those cotter pins. If it works, it works, right? Yeah. Well, that's what I love about it. They made millions of them. They had to come out of the factory quickly. You put a bolt versus a cotter pin. And it's a lot easier to do a cotter pin. Oh, man. That's what I kind of love. I love the build of that.

24:15And I used to be kind of a reckless person. And now I've kind of put that to the side. And driving the Mustang quick is as reckless as I get nowadays. So how often does the car actually get to get out on the road? I like to get it out every day, you know, in the summertime. I really, it really, in Michigan and Grand Rapids, you don't get to see the classic cars around town. Right. You know, and so it kind of, I know it brightens people's days seeing it.

24:49My, the paint, Tim, Linda's husband, who was Gary's daughter, ended up painting the thing, you know, back in the 90s. Or he's probably 80s. And that same paint job's on it. So it has a patina on it that is just, it's, I don't have the chrome on her. She's, there's primer black and primer gray on it. And it has a little tiny, like surface kind of, not, no pitting, but surface corrosion on it.

25:23And I just think it keeps it safe around town. It's your rough pony, though. So you get to call her. I love, I like the not showroom quality of her. Right. I really dig the, makes it feel like if something happens to it, well, the thing is, I kind of feel like nothing's going to happen to her. Right. You know, it's in my brain. Or if it does, it's not the end of the world. You haven't paid $20,000 for a paint job on that. So, so it's one of those things where if it does get a, you don't want to get a ding, but if it does get a ding or if it does get a love tap on it, at least it's, you know, it's, it's not the end of the world.

26:01Right. I see people like at parallel parking and watch people just lean up against it and take pictures, you know, and I'm like, I'm, I'm cool with it. You know, as long as you're just not like laying on the hood. Right. You know, I'm okay with that good lean. I, I, I've done it many times myself. What a, uh, what a great story.

Future Plans for the Mustang

26:20So what, uh, as we wrap up, tell me what, um, what do you have to do on it that you really want to do, uh, in, in your, in your time? With the time on the Mustang, I almost have it all buttoned up. I, I honestly, I, I just put a new clutch in, uh, on her. She was really running low on that. Uh, but of like, I got my, the suspension I need, uh, I've kind of moved on to other cars essentially right now, you know, because I got, I got other builds and, uh, right now it just, what is it that I could do with pony?

26:57I don't even want to paint. No, that's okay. You know, if the answer is, if the answer is I'm, I'm done with doing it, you know, when something breaks, I'm going to repair it. That's cool too. And keep in mind for those in our community that are listening to John share his story and you're like, you know, thinking, Hey, get a great paint job on that. Or, Hey, upgrade the suspension or do a Shelby drop or do it. You know, any of the things that you can do. That is why we all have our own unique perspective on our Mustangs. John likes his Mustang the way it, it is. I like renting out my car.

27:27Others would say, don't ever rent out your car. You know, I just do a rent out for photo shoots, but, but, you know, just don't, don't do any of that stuff. Just keep it for yourself. I'm like, okay, well, that's, you know, you do your thing. I'll do my thing. So different strokes for different folks in your case as well, John. Yep. And I got all, I guess someday, you know, I got a loose windscreen. I, you know, need to put a new gasket on that. So, because I do have water coming in, you know, when it rains. So I do, I got a new windscreen, you know, basically a gasket for it. And I, I like my parts for, I collect parts for Mustangs and just, you know, I, if I find any OE parts,

28:04I just buy them on, and if I see them on Marketplace. Yeah. For those that are listening to this, who, who among us does not have a leak? I think all four of my classics all have leaks that you just have to know where the leaks are. So you can avoid replacing anything that's within the flow of the water from the leak. Yeah. I, and that's about it, you know, on, and I just don't want water to come on. And I also, I guess my windscreen wiper, I need to wipe in a new switch there, or wire a new switch for that.

28:34Right now, I just have a toggle switch for my windscreen wipers. Understood. Yeah. But it's, I think she's pretty, eventually, yes, paint job is going to happen. I just kind of, I know that it, you can almost get into this thing with a flathead screwdriver if one wants and get going with it. So I kind of, it's my own little safety mechanism is how I feel about her. Totally understand. Well, it's a great story. I so appreciate you taking time out of your day to share it. I know that there are people that are smiling as they're listening to your story.

29:06Uh, some of you are cringing as you're listening to John's story and saying, you got to fix the screwdriver thing or no leaks. I'm like, you know what? Yeah. That's just not how John wants to do it. It's John's car. He gets to do what he wants. I'm working on an 83 Datsun currently. So, yeah, that's the, so kind of, and, uh, and would love to get the 51 running. Nice. You know, that's hopefully in the future. That is in the future. That'll be for our other shows, which is the, uh, uh, you know, Nissan or Datsun 280Z.

29:38But we're not going to show you that story again. I got my first car again, essentially, you know? So, yeah, I got lucky. Understood. Understood. Well, John, so appreciate you sharing with our community. Thanks for being here. And thanks for sharing your, uh, your story. Thanks, Doug. I hope this, uh, hope this works for you. This will be great. And for Ford Mustang community, if you're in our audience and you have an idea for the show or you want to be a guest like John on the podcast, also, you tell your story, just send an email to me. It's Doug at turnkeypodcast.com. Information will be right there in the show notes. Go ahead and, uh, you know, keep it safe, keep it rolling and keep it on the road until

30:10next time. Thanks for listening to the Ford Mustang first generation, the early years podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to your podcasts ideas for the show. Click the link in the show notes. Thanks again for tuning in.