My brother recently visited LA from Hong Kong; it was his first trip to visit me since I moved out west. Since he doesn’t come to the U.S. often, I decided I’d fix the 1966 Ford Mustang that I bought him 12 years ago when I was in college. After all, I had driven the car all the way from Detroit to LA, so it was time for my brother to finally, after all these years, drive his car. What resulted were two of the most epic days of our brotherhood, followed immediately by a reminder that we should all carry fire extinguishers in our vehicles.
A little backstory on the car in case you haven’t been reading all my work for the past decade: My brother Michael has been obsessed with Ford Mustangs since he first saw the movie Gone in 60 Seconds when he was 10 years old. From that moment on, he’s wanted Ford Mustang memorabilia for every birthday and Christmas. He’s gotten Mustang calendars, shirts, hats, posters — you name it. For the past 25 years, he has faithfully been a true first-gen Mustang fanboy. The car is truly his passion.
Back in college, I used to bicycle past an abandoned 1966 Ford Mustang sitting in a gravel lot, being used to store old tires. Inside I saw lots of notes from prospective buyers: “Hey, if you ever sell this, call me!” the notes read. For a year I’d bike past the Mustang, stop, and gaze at its beauty. The body looked good! And when I wiped the grime from the sheetmetal with my finger, a nice red seemed to pop. “Wow, this thing seems kinda nice!” I remember thinking. “Such a shame it’s abandoned.”
Then, one day, for reasons I have yet to fully understand, I asked a random pedestrian who was walking by if they knew whose Mustang that was. Of course, they did not. “How am I supposed to know?” they replied. “I dunno, just call the number on the side of that car I guess,” they quipped before walking away.
I turned. The car the person pointed at was a limousine, and it did indeed have a number on its side. I gave it a ring and asked about the Mustang. “Oh yeah, that old thing? I’m handling the estate of a professor who recently died, and I gotta get rid of that. Do you want it?”
I replied with a yes, and we agreed on a $4000 price that increased to $4500 at the last second for no reason, possibly due to the lawyer knowing the car was worth more. Anyway, I was happy with that price, even if I had no money as a college student. I scraped the pennies together and then called my brother over Skype. “You see this?” I showed him, pointing to a piece of paper. “This is the title to your new 1966 Ford Mustang.”
Needless to say, he was amped. Of course, he lives in Hong Kong, and I spent the following 12 years storing the car and not having it anywhere near drivable, but then the pandemic happened, I got off my ass and fixed the car, and then when I moved to LA I had to make sure it could drive long distances. The car was ready for Mike’s first drive, so when he came to visit me in early July this year, I was excited to show him.
The weekend was great. It started with me picking my brother and his wife up at the airport in my gold BMW i3S, a car that Mike seems to like quite a bit. We then went back to my place, where the two got dressed, and joined my partner and me in my 1991 Jeep Wrangler YJ to head to a 4th of July Party on the beach.
We ate good food, I introduced Mike and his parter to my friends, and we just chilled next to the Pacific Ocean.
The next few days, we just did LA things. We visited the Griffith Observatory, we ate ice cream and watched 4th of July fireworks, we walked Venice Beach, and we drank icees on Santa Monica Pier (aka the end of Route 66).
It was an amazing few days, especially since he was driving us around in his Mustang, which was running like an absolute top.
I had just had this gentleman (see above) install an entirely new exhaust system with a Flowmaster 90-Series muffler, and though it cost me $800, it sounded incredible, and really let that V8 sing like the car gods intended.
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The clip above is what cars are all about. They can bring so much joy, while taking you to places you have to go anyway — they fill in the gray areas of your life (your commute between locations) and give them vibrant color.
Driving with Mike down the PCH in that old car — his dream car — was a true bucket list item for both of us. It was the perfect car, the perfect road, the perfect compadre. 
The weekend was a dream all the way until the end, when we decided to stop by Chinatown, walk around a bit, and then hop back into Mustang. Mike pumped the gas (which I wouldn’t recommend, since the engine was already hot) and tried cranking. The engine was a bit flooded, so it cranked and cranked and cranked. Then it fired up. He drove a few yards before braking at a stop sign.
That’s when we saw smoke billow from under the hood. It was very obvious to both of us what was happening. He grabbed the fire extinguisher that I keep between the two front seats (see above), I took my shirt off and ran to the trunk to grab a gallon jug of water. By the time I arrived at the front of the car Mike had the fire extinguisher pointed at a bright orange flame atop that mighty V8 engine. A quick jolt of adrenaline shot through my body just as Mike hit the trigger — instantly the flame was gone.
My carburetor had been a bit leaky when I flooded the engine, though it had never been much of a concern — after all, I’d driven the car across the country without issue, as I’d learned how to drive the car without flooding the motor.
Still, I should have ensured that the car could be driven by anybody, and that the carburetor wasn’t leaking anything. I take full accountability for that.
Luckily, I have enough experience working on old cars to know that one should always keep a working fire extinguisher in one’s car. Especially if your car has a carburetor (which introduces many more leak paths than a fuel injection system), you need to make sure your vehicle is outfitted with a fire extinguisher. I’m firm in that belief.
For us, this incident — which could have resulted in one fewer 1966 Ford Mustang in this world — was just a minor inconvenience. Within 45 minutes a tow truck was there with the Mustang on its flatbed.
Mike was sad:
The car suffered no damage other than a burned coolant temp sensor wire; Mike had handled the situation perfectly, and he was actually thrilled by the whole weekend, despite the rather fiery incident there at the end. It’s never a dull moment, he told me as we sat in the cab of the tow truck on our way to Van Nuys. Never a dull moment, indeed.
Here’s a photo of him driving his favorite car down a Santa Monica street:
Just a tip about fire extinguishers in the home: We all know to keep one in the kitchen and one in the garage, but we need to remember to keep them in a spot that’s accessible if there’s a fire. Don’t keep the extinguisher next to the stove, keep it where you can get it in case of fire. Don’t keep one on the far side of the burning car, keep it by the garage entry.