A rental Mustang is now a collector's item

LAS VEGAS – The history of Rich Wilson's 1966 Mustang fastback is summed up on the license plate frame of the sleek black fastback: "Hertz Rent-A-Racer.''

His car is a Ford Shelby Mustang GT 350H, the designation of a special group of Mustangs produced for purchase by Hertz for the airport rental market.

Hertz has had a long history renting Mustangs, but Wilson's was one of the first, back when want-to-be racers on a budget could rent a hot Mustang on a Friday, race it over the weekend and return it to the rental agency on Monday.

This car was available for one year at San Francisco airport. The cost: $17 a day plus 17 cents a mile.

"You had to be 25 and take a driving test with Hertz to rent one,'' he says.

The car is black with dual wide racing stripes in gold. It has a 289 cubic inch V8 and an automatic transmission.

These Shelby Mustangs originated at Ford's assembly plant at Milpitas, Calif., then shipped to car builder and engine-tuner legend Carroll Shelby's factory in Los Angeles, where it received some special touches that boosted power. Among them: a tall intake manifold, exhaust headers and a large-capacity baffled oil sump to keep the big motor lubricated and cool.

The enhancements boosted the motor from 271 hp stock to 306 hp at the crank.

The first of the rental fleet Shelby Mustangs came with a manual transmission, but Hertz switched to ordering them with an automatic to discourage racing, he says.

Wilson has full documentation on the car's history. From Hertz, the car went to a Ford dealer in Fairfield, Calif., where it was sold as a used car. A friend of Wilson's bought the car 30 years ago, and Wilson purchased it from him in 2004.

Prior to that, it was in the hands of a drag racer, who pulled the automatic and installed a a manual transmission, the better to run on the track. He put 40,000 miles on the car over nearly two decades, "a quarter mile at a time,'' Wilson says.

The automatic transmission was put back in the car when it was returned to street use. It still has most original bits under the hood .

Wilson, 66, is a retired banking auditor from Fremont, Calif., who like so many of the nameplate's fanatics had a Mustang for a first car – a 1966 model that he bought in 1968 – and finds turning wrenches on cars to be a fun hobby and therapeutic pastime.

The car he was showing at the Mustang 50th anniversary celebration here was close to all original. It has the original California gold-on-black license plate – a highly desirable bit of authenticity prized by West Coast collectors.

He has another Shelby GT too, nearly identical, that is even more original – giving him a driver and a showcar of the same model.

He's got a third Mustang too, and until a week before the gathering at Las Vegas Speedway he had a fourth. Though it wasn't for sale, a collector persuaded him to sell.

"I'm down to three Mustangs,'' he says wistfully.