Jack Mintz’ 1965 Mustang - Jay Leno's Garage

when i first came out to california in 72 these things are all over the place now you never ever see them anymore this is the ultimate recycling you could take a car that might have gone to the junkyard and you fix it up you get it running you use it for another 20 years 25 years it's fun to drive i'm impressed one episode of jaylon's garage the car we're featuring today 1965 mustang i hate going to car shows you ever see people have a sign do not approach this car keep back you know you just people get real snobby i always let people sit in my car or touch my car or whatever and consequently a lot of times there are young people at car shows and the old guys chase them away you know whereas i like to talk to young people and this is owned by a young man who got this car well well before his 16th birthday and restored it so he'd be ready to drive when he had his license and i saw it at a car show and i said wow that's real nice and i realized oh jack is only uh 15 and a half well he's 16 now jack come on in and jack mintz right yes yeah good to see you my friend nice to see you yeah we have a car show down in malibu where just one of those cars and coffee thing it's not a judged event just a parking lot full of cars and jack showed up with this car one of the youngest people there and so how long have you had this i've had this car for almost two years a little under two years oh so you got on your 14. correct see i got my 34 ford when i was 14. and i'm thinking i got my 34 to 1964. so that was a newer car to me than this was to you yeah which which seems almost ridiculous to me but okay now were you always looking for a mustang or what uh i'd say about when i was 12 i had my eyes set on a mustang yeah but ever since i was a really young kid i've always wanted to have a classic car right okay even before you had a car correct yeah now is your dad a big car in these did you get it from him no my grandparents really took me to car shows when i was young uh peterson automotive museum when i saw this car i knew it was the one okay now what did grandpa drive one of his cars was a 71 pantera oh very nice and my grandma had a a 68 camaro oh a cool grandma and grandpa yeah that's all right so so you found this where did you find it towards lax downey yeah so it was a bit of a drive to get there but we it made it home all the way back to oh okay yeah okay now we should explain this is the got the six cylinder right the 170 of 200 200 oh the big block yeah so you got the big block mustang six okay very cool and you got the uh c4 isn't that the c4 automatic yeah yep and it looks like that's factory air is that it's not factory but it's a reproduction of factories boy it looks just like it it's really good um i did a lot of the work myself but my my parents helped me out and we had some of it done by professional mechanics oh okay i redid the ignition system myself oh okay so but your dad's not a car guy he is not so he's a lawyer yeah having a lawyer helped me fix the car how expensive is that oh my god that was pretty open the hood let's take a look at the big six you know i used to see guys put webers on these and because the six is so small and light they really this is really great because i i like stuff done on a budget i like where it's it's all elbow grease and hard work plus you learn about the car very nice new wires here and everything yep and it's got power steering yes a six with power steering that's unusual i we had it put in after just because it's my first car oh okay oh okay that makes sense and of course custom radiator yep very nice keep it nice and cool i i recognize this off the 289 that's the uh that was part of the what they call the dress up package you got the chrome valve covers and you got that that air cleaner there very cool nicely done how does it drive it drives very nicely um i've had the brakes redone so i have front disc brakes in the back oh and drums in the rear oh okay well that's a smart choice yeah cool cool and the dual master yeah yeah new braking system right right very nice yeah it will shut this down what kind of shape was the body in when you got it it was in very good shape the paint was the same as it is now yeah i polished it and waxed it but other than that it's aesthetically it was is it's very similar to who it is now new antenna though so no more school bus right yeah that's about right yeah that's the worst yeah when you can drive your own car to school that's that's the way to go did you put the wire wheel hubcaps on um they came like that oh it did yeah they did i remember that option and they actually look pretty good they you know they almost look like real wire wheels some of them some of them look really fake and i remember that that's a sport wheel that's probably not the stock wheel it is not i had that put on yeah yeah that's that's the one that came when you got the 71 horsepower with the simulated wood grain i always liked that phrase always made me laugh but it's a good looking wheel very nice interior is really good shape did you have to do anything to that other than just clean it up um it was it was in great shape when we purchased the car the only thing that's new to the interior is the um speedometer it's just a new speedometer but it looks the same and a new radio and air conditioning oh okay this is always my favorite year the first year mustang was the best you know afterwards they got they got big then they got small then they got wide this was the perfect size i love the thin doors you know i've got the 350 the shelby over there which it's so funny because in 65 when that came out that was the most powerful mustang you get now the little four cylinder has the same power yeah more power than that does yeah it's really funny but that's a lot of fun to drive that thing let's take a look in the trunk yeah oh and you have the actual mustang keychain you gotta have that that's right yeah i'll let you open it okay you know it's almost hard too that's a good choice trunk oh yeah nicely laid out yeah these are the original uh original jack i mean the first year they sold like a million of these i can't believe that and i can remember at the time people saying they'll never be collectible because they've made too many of them but that's why they're collectibles exactly you got yourself a newspaper and a real spare not a stupid little can of air that won't work yeah exactly yeah and what they call this one the notchback right yeah the fastback and then yeah coupe notchback right yeah yeah so what did your mom think of this did your mom think was a good idea uh it took a lot of convincing it was not easy at first they don't even try motorcycle okay oh yeah yeah don't even try motorcycle all moms hate motorcycles that's the first rule yeah but was she worried with were you spending too much time in the garage and not enough time on your homework yeah i'd say so um i i um i put new seat belts in right which helps can help my mom's like that yeah exactly what do you what do you say well you're in high school but what do you want to do you think when you get out of school um i've i'm not sure yet but i really am getting into automotive engineering oh great i like working on this car and figuring out how an engine works well there's a great school called um mcpherson college in kansas and they give a four-year degree in automobile restoration but it's a full four year i mean you take you know math geometry english science you know all that stuff too but with the emphasis on automotive so you can move into the automotive field you know they've had an awful lot of kids get sent to the mercedes classic center jaguar heritage center and they make a hundred bucks an hour wow when your mom hears when they stop crying that you want to be a mechanic and they hear you make 100 bucks an hour oh then then they're happy different story yeah exactly exactly well very cool what else what else is there to show us on this thing um uh do you have to do any bodywork um we did have towards the upper control panel we had some rust that was almost to the point where we didn't know if we were going to keep the car oh wow we had to take part of the body and put a reinforcement metal um plating that was welded back into the car other than that there was no body damage yeah so never been an accident huh not that i can tell no were they the original couldn't have been the original i think this i'm the fourth owner of the car oh okay and he's from new jersey oh is that right have you tracked down any of the previous owners around i can't no i have not it'd be a little hard to do yeah was this do you think the original color uh yeah i checked the vin plate um in a decoder and the original color was vintage burgundy this has a little bit of metal flaking but the base color is almost identical because their guy is a mustang club and look at the vinegar it was built by larry on a thursday he had two cups of coffee and then he took a break before he put the engine mounts yeah i mean literally it's crazy it's crazy well very good now now that center console that's not that is aftermarket that's yeah i didn't yeah that we didn't have cup holders we had to hold our own cups not like kids today it came like that when i purchased the car so i didn't put it in and you can tell us mine because it has a normal cup holder than the 44 ounce big gulp cup holder right here yeah right next to it yeah that big giant thing you could bathe in yeah very funny yeah i didn't i thought that console was not original but i always remember these seats and your mustangs never looked right with headrests on them i like this look to it yeah you know oh sure you're snapping your neck and you're just in a wheelchair the rest you like but it looks better this was i think a 2.50 50 cent option the side mirror yeah two dollars add that onto the sticker 2.50 didn't even come with passenger side mirrors so that's after market oh that's right yeah well you know if you have you seen any of the old james bond movies i have you remember the goldfinger one where he's in he gets in the girl with a mustang do you remember that remember and you see this bomber go 100 100 105 110 and it's going like this and james bond's getting all nervous you know the girl's driving yeah oh that was cool then the girl in the mustang going up the pass yeah just watch that over and over again that's my car there you go cool cool what else is it let's see new good rich tires yeah those are brand new actually about a week old now so i had white walls before but i wanted to do put a change in them so oh i like the black walls i like with the raised letters yeah no you've done a great job i mean how much do you think you have financially invested not counting buying the car indoors i'd i'd say about 12 1200 yeah no 12 000. or 12 or 12 000 yeah okay that's pretty yeah yeah i think most of it was the rust work and the car we rebuilt the carburetor and it was a lot of stuff that wasn't needed to be done but could help me when since i'm a new driver and yeah it wasn't the best to have manual brakes and manual steering well 12 000 let's see when i was a kid 50 something years ago i probably would have ran around 1200 but that's about what it would be so that's about right because i remember uh a bunny of mine had a shelby mustang for sale for six or eight hundred i'm not paying 800. and yeah now the car's 150 thousand dollars yeah paying 800 bucks in 1971 for a five-year-old car you know but it's a different story now different story now yeah well cool well it really looks good so what do your friends at school think about it they're impressed with it yeah a lot of people love my car whenever i go to car shows or um post it on social media i think a lot of people really like my car yeah well i think they like to see a young person like yourself not only has the car but takes care of it maintains it yeah you know it's uh it's it's it's good to see it's cool well can i take it for a ride yeah go ahead yeah yeah all right we'll do that we'll take this baby for a ride am i the first non-family member to drive this i think so ah starts right up [Music] cool [Music] runs good you know i'm a sucker with these old mustangs in the six cylinder which is kind of cool you know when uh i was a kid they used to mark at the six cylinder mustang to secretaries and women as their first car and there was a book out at the time by helen gurley brown called sex and a single girl so ford had a campaign called six and the single girl and in boston they weren't allowed to run the ad they thought it was too racy just oh they you wanna imply that that's going on but you know it's pretty lively it goes okay i forgot what the horsepower rating was on this probably like uh 125 something like that but as i told jack my first car was a 34 ford pickup i got that 1964. at the time it was only 30 years old see jack got his a couple years ago his is 50 this is at least 55 years old right that would be like me getting a car from from 1905. that make any sense when i first came out to california in 72 these things are all over the place now you never ever see them anymore because they did rust out pretty quickly galvanized steel was still a couple years away yeah see people wave take pictures i love when i meet kids that are interested in something anything whether it's cars motorcycles photography anything whatever it is just be interested in something you know i like that youthful clear curiosity i mean when i was jack's age i know when i got my 3440 used to lie in bed thinking what if i can't drive a stick or if one of those people can't do it i'd wake up in a cold sweat you know i mean last time i was 15 and a half it was 55 years ago that's not good [Music] everything seems to work turn signals radio horn horn works good it's fun to see young people with a passion you know to be excited about something whether it's music like i say or cameras or cars or whatever you know just just having that excitement of getting your first car what's cooler than that certainly runs nice this thing got plenty of power it's fun to drive i remember being his age you know when i got that 34 ford run and i took it out on the street for the first time ah it's like the space shuttle that's so exciting you know it's funny when you live in california i mean kids their first car is a lamborghini hurricane you know something like that you know their dad got him i know a kid his dad got a little mclaren you know i'm sorry they're not going to have the passion for it that jack has for this car but you didn't do it yourself you just got it it was a gift you know the fact you got this car you fixed it up you did what work you could then you left the important stuff like the brakes and a few other things to the experts that's okay gotta be safe my mom had a falcon with this six not just the 170 not the big block like this the 200. you know i've seen guys put weber carburetors on these things and modify them and actually get them to go pretty good i think this would be a work in progress for quite a while for jax i wish my best of luck with it and like i say it's just so exciting to me to see a young person interested in something and working on it and fix it with its own hands it teaches about responsibility and engineering and you know you're more likely to take care of it not have your goofball friends pile into it you know and go to a party or do something like that you know so i'm impressed this is the ultimate recycling you could take a car that might have gone to the junkyard you fix it up you get it running you use it for another 20 years 25 years jack thanks for letting me drive your car buddy a lot of fun i forgot to ask him how many miles let's see how many miles 96 thousand well it's about to turn over you know jack is probably pacing back and forth wondering if i wrapped this thing around a tree yet i wish he had some old bombed out mustang on the trail where we could oh jack look what happened jack were you worried no i i mean yes i was scared jay how was the ride it runs great you did a good job thank you it's terrific it's terrific very cool cool well thanks for bringing it i really appreciate it thank you for driving in it yeah yeah i know it's great to see you did a good job yeah thank you so much jay so you driving this car now it's like me drive when i was your guy driving a car from 1905. wow that is that's crazy well cool thank you my friends of course good work good work cool see you guys next week [Music] laughs

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 282,245

Rating: 4.9657292 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, Ford, Mustang, Lee Iacocca, Carrol Shelby, new driver, car nerd, car porn, gearhead, Jack Mintz, Gregg Mintz, pony car, restomod, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, mustang fastback, ford mustang, mustang gt, jay leno cars, Cars and Coffee, 1965 Mustang, 1965 Mustang at 14 years-old, Coffee, fastest car, JL garage, ford modified car

Id: 390Ax0mFZ-4

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Very cool.

Can see why there aren't too many young people into these '60s and early '70s muscle cars though. Even a junk, rusty, 6cyl, auto, notchback like this is out of the reach of most young people. Not many people are that passionate.

Hope Jack got a neat tour of Jay's restoration shop and maybe a ride in a couple of his cars.