Dale & Patty Koontz
Sixteen years has passed since the day I purchased my 67’ GT Acapulco Blue Fastback. It was back in 1989, I was in the Air Force and stationed in Phoenix Arizona. One day at work, a friend informed me he knew a guy who had a fastback mustang for sell and ask if I would be interested. The guy who had the mustang happened to be a Chevy guy and wanted the pony car out of his drive way. When I went and looked the car over I found a straight, rust free fastback missing an engine and transmission. The absent driveline explained the cheap price—$750! Even without an engine I wanted the mustang. Not only was the price right but I thought she would make a great daily driver if I dropped a 390 or small block under the hood. Once I had the fastback home in my garage, I discovered something special in the VIN number. The engine code was a “K” and that meant this mustang was a rare 289-4V HiPo! This provoked a little research into 67 mustangs where I discovered this was the last year for the HiPo engine and Ford only built 472 of these special mustangs! Learning of the extreme rarity, I knew the daily driver aspect was out and this pony deserved a full restoration to factory original condition.
To start, I needed a correct engine to transplant under the hood. I initially thought I could call up a couple salvage yards and find all the parts I needed. Boy was I wrong! Dismay and disappointment was a daily aspect in trying to find correct parts and when I did find correct parts, shock set in when I had to pay the price for these parts! After about six months of searching (remember this was before the Ebay) I finally found and purchased a complete 289 HiPo engine. Upon rebuilding and installing my newly acquired HiPo engine, the old stang came back to life. Soon after the engine was installed I was informed Uncle Sam was reassigning me to Anchorage Alaska. This meant putting the restoration on hold and this pony had to be put in storage where she stayed for over 10 years. In 2002 while stationed in Florida, I was finally able to retrieve my fastback from long-term storage and start the rotisserie restoration. Three years later, gobs and gobs of money and a huge number of personal man-hours cleaning every nut and bolt, my pony car is just like the day she rolled off the San Jose assembly line.
My K-code fastback was built 9 March 1967 and sold by Richardson Ford in Albuquerque NM on 10 Apr 67 with the following Options:
F70-14 Wide Oval Tires Sport Deck Rear Seat
AM/8-Track Stereo Radio Exterior Décor Group
Tinted Glass Acapulco Blue Paint
1967 Production Statistics
472 Mustangs built W/ 289-4V HiPo Engine
205 with this Engine/Transmission
4,366 painted W/ Acapulco Blue Paint
If you happen to see my rare pony at one of the club’s shows, I hope you stop, say hello and enjoy my Acapulco blue fastback as much as I do—Dale Koontz
