Today’s Nice Price or No Dice Mustang is a rare model built in collaboration by Ford, American Specialty Cars (ASC), and the licensing of the British F1 maker McLaren’s name. The result is something weirdly ’80s, but is it also anything anyone would want?
Japanese automaker Nissan is going through some tough times. The company is owed a 121-foot yacht and a bunch of cash by its on-the-lam former CEO, Carlos Ghosn. Bad as that is, Nissan’s prospects are so dire that a merger with Honda is on the horizon, and we all know how those work out. Adding insult to injury, the 1966 Datsun 1600 ‘Fairlady’ Roadster we looked at yesterday found few friends here. Priced at $11,500, it was considered too ratchet for that five-figure asking and ended up earning both derision in the comments and a 62 percent No Dice loss in the voting.
For today, we’re going to talk about another rags-to-riches-to-rags player in the automotive market—ASC. ASC started as the American Sunroof Company, born out of a garage in San Francisco in late 1963. In that rented body shop space, German foreign exchange student Heinz Prechter began importing and installing Golde sunroofs in people’s cars.
The quality of Prechter’s work impressed custom car builder George Barris so much that Barris offered his connections at the Ford Motor Company to get Heinz project work there. That led to a contract with FoMoCo and ASC’s move to Detroit. Over the ensuing years, ASC expanded, opening a Custom Craft division that made Continental Kits and other gaudy accessories for Lincolns and Caddys and purchased Bruce McLaren’s Michigan engine works after that company had moved in the early 1980s to predominately F1 engineering across the pond in England.
Around the same time, ASC changed its name to American Specialty Company as it had moved far beyond just cutting holes in car roofs. A global industry supplier, ASC built convertible versions of Porsche’s 944 and 968, Toyoya’s Celica, and the Nissan 330ZX. It also lent its name to a series of specially modified Fox-body Capri and Mustang models, creating the first factory-backed Capri convertible in history and later converting Mustangs in the same fashion after Ford dropped the U.S. Fox-body Capri.
Sadly, Prechter was plagued by mental health issues later in his life and died by suicide in 2001. That was the beginning of the end of his automotive empire, and ASC closed up shop for good in 2017.
This 1988 Ford Mustang ASC/McLaren is one of 1,806 built over the model’s four-year production run. It may not look all that different from the Mustang GT upon which it is based, but the changes are substantial, most notably, the increased rake of the windscreen and lower height of the convertible top. The interior was also modified, with the rear seat space now a luggage rack and the front seats covered in leather.
The McLaren element of the equation comes in the form of revised suspension pieces offering sharper handling. The GT’s fuel-injected 5.0 remains untouched, but at 225 horsepower and 285 lb-ft of torque, it’s no slouch. Those ponies are routed through a five-speed stick to the rear axle. Gold basket-weave alloys wrapped in BFG Radial T/A rubber get them to the pavement.
According to the ad, the car sports 88K on the clock and looks to be in exemplary condition both inside and out. The top appears to work as it should, and the seller says the car “RUNS GREAT!” and has “NO ISSUES!” It comes with a clean title and the seller’s admonition against tire kickers (you know who you are.) For those above and beyond such shenanigans, the asking price is $16,995.
What’s your opinion of this ASC/McLaren and that asking? Does that seem like a deal for a car that is so rare? Or is that too much to spend on a one-off Mustang from a sunroof company?
You decide!
Seattle, Washington, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
Help me out with NPOND. Hit me up via email and send me a fixed-price tip. Remember to include your Kinja handle.
