One of my favorite colors is lime green. My parents allowed me to choose the paint color in my bedroom when I was four – I chose lime green. Lime green Skittles were my favorite until they foolheartedly changed that flavor to a sickly apple green (I sent them a strongly worded email voicing my displeasure). Perhaps most important of all, my dad once owned a Grabber Lime 1971 Mustang Mach 1 that initiated a fascination with that combination of color and model that continues today. All of these things caught up with me on October 10th, when I saw this Grabber Lime Ecoboost Mustang on a dealer lot in Northern Michigan.
Grabber Lime is a one-year color – it has been cancelled for 2021. Therefore, the date I mentioned above is of paramount importance to my not-that-interesting tale. I decided that I wanted a Grabber Lime Mustang with one option – the “Black Accent Package,” which includes blacked out trim and wheels. A modern car comes with more than I need anyway.
Next, I visited Ford’s website to spec out that particular model, and followed it up with a message to a large Ford dealership in Ann Arbor, and a dealer more local to me. Only Ann Arbor responded, but they informed me that the order bank had closed for 2020, and it would be basically impossible to trade for a car such as the one I wanted. And that was that.
I know I would have liked the car itself – my mom and dad currently drive a 2018 Ecoboost Premium in black that they’ve let me drive several times. Dad hasn’t been without a Mustang in his name since he was 20 or so.
This is Dad with his Mach 1, cutting a period-stylish figure. The Mustang was a 351 Cleveland four-barrel car, and anyone who appreciates big Mustangs can see why I fell in love with pictures of it at a young age. Unfortunately, Dad traded it in on a ’74 Gran Torino Elite a couple years before I was born.
Digression about a strange coincidence: Dad’s Mustang almost certainly met its fate in the early 1980s at the hands of my wife’s stepfather of all people, who owned a rusty lime green Mach 1 while he was in high school near where we live. He said it was a 351 four-barrel, and he grenaded the engine. By that time, it had developed some significant natural body ventilation.
Here are my mom and my older cousin posing with the Mach 1 (with my uncle’s ’66 GTO in the background). My mom’s wearing a “Photographer Official 1968 Speedway” shirt from the Indy 500 – my grandpa was a loyal Indy Car fan, an amateur photographer, and an employee at the local newspaper; he attended the 500 most years and must have wrangled the shirt somehow. Mom, by the way, has her own Mustang history; in fact, I’ve been driving her old car for years.
Here’s the whole Mach 1 for good measure. My dad sometimes tells the story of driving the car to Florida in December 1972 for his and Mom’s honeymoon. He left his snow tires on the back, and someone down south complimented his “nice mudgrips.” He still gets a chuckle out of that one.
I hope you now can see why I was so tempted by a modern version of my dad’s old car. Here’s an example of what I was looking for in a new one (but this one’s an automatic that’s now sold). My dad would obviously have been happy with my new purchase had it happened, but all might be for the best anyway.
Around the same time that this Mustang business was going on, I had decided that I’m finally going to buy a ’63 or ’64 Riviera, price be damned (within reason). All this Mustang money would have interfered with what is really something I need to do; I’ve wanted an early Riv for almost 20 years and there’s no reason for me not to have one by now.
Therefore, I’ll keep commuting in my 2012 manual-transmission Focus SE, the only car I’ve bought new, pictured here when I bought it in November 2011. It’s fine. It only has 90,000 miles and gets 35+ miles per gallon, not to mention the fact that it’s bait for the salt anyway. Fans of this website will know that I have a seven antique car menagerie at my disposal for fun. Regardless, missing out on the Mustang hurts a little, as missed opportunities always do. If I’m lucky, my new old Riviera, wherever it is, will help alleviate the pain.
You were correct sir. The story is not that interesting. 🙂
Another satisfied customer.
Those vintage shots are fantastic! Love the green.
There is always the possibility to pick up a lightly used example in the future. On the bright side it does not shut the door on the Riviera purchase.
I fully understand your yearning for a car that connects with your youth. As we empty-nested, I bought a 64 Thunderbird in Britany Blue. Dad had one in the day (dark red). Dad passed 7 months after I bought the Bird.
My wife had a used 70 Mustang in her college years (Ivory Green). It came complete with the Fred Flintstone feature… rusted floor boards. When our daughter went to college, we got a new 2010 Mustang Pony Package in Kona Blue for her. My wife loved that car. Our 40th anniversary was this year, but our dream trip to Italy and Greece had to be cancelled. In its place, I bought her a new 2020 Mustang Pony Package in Velocity Blue. Happy wife; happy life.
Go get your Mustang! It’s out there somewhere. Our car came from 140 miles away.
@Drew: OOOOOOOH! I LOVE that Blue! 🙂
+2, Drew. Beautiful color!!!
Fred Flintstone package lol
Wow! That Velocity Blue works so well on this car. And… it’s nice to see some real colors out there these days. Enjoy the Stang!
Beautiful car and a happy owner. The Mediterranean can wait.
Aaron, you and lime green Mustangs are meant for each other. Just do it. YOLO!
I know what the allure of a new Mustang feels like. My wife has a family history similar to yours — her parents bought a 1967 Mustang before she was born, and kept that car… well, almost forever. My wife drove it until it rusted to pieces in 1995. But we often eye new Mustangs, even though that’s not exactly the type of car we need right now.
As a digression, I’ve found the process of building new cars online — on the manufacturers’ websites — to be rather addictive. Earlier this year I was doing that quite a bit with various cars. And more recently I was (somewhat) amused to see one of my daughters “building” various Ram trucks instead of paying attention to online school. Oh well. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
But most importantly here, did you ever hear back from the Skittles company after your email?
I did! They informed me a couple of years back that there would be “Long Lost Lime” Skittles at Walmart. I bought a few bags at the time. As annoyed as I was, I had to give them props for keeping my email address and actually listening.
Somewhat ironic that your local Ford dealer didn’t return your inquiry about purchasing a $30,000 Mustang, but Skittles actually gave you a personal reply over a box of candy that cost probably 99¢.
I’ve purchased my last two cars online, by emailing dealers and describing my criteria. Overall, this approach has worked out well for me, but in both cases about half of the dealers never got back to me. I can’t fathom how/why a business would not return an inquiry from an obviously serious customer.
I absolutely agree…I couldn’t believe it. The dealer that didn’t return my inquiry is a fairly high-volume dealer for my area; my dad bought his Mustang there and had a good experience. Maybe nobody’s manning the computers.
There was a bit of a Green Apple fad in the candy business at the time IIRC, with several brands (i.e. Mentos) adding the previously rare green apple flavor to their mix. I prefer lime too.
Keep that early Riv dream alive, Mustangs are a dime a dozen…
Here ya go, it’s even green. And a ‘65, one of the most coveted model years.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1965-buick-riviera-30/
Wow, that’s a beauty. I prefer ’63s and ’64s, but that one’s enough to change a guy’s mind.
Yeesh…it’s going for almost 30 grand and there are six days to go! Yeah, that one’s going to be way out of my price range.
The lime doesn’t appeal to me, but as I’ve heard said in farming country, that’s why there are red hats and green hats.
A family car in a unique color car really take root in the soul, so I understand perfectly. I get the same kind of urge on the rare occasions when someone offers a dark green that is close to black like the 64 Cutlass I grew up in.
I guess you will now need to keep your eye on the CarMax and CarVana websites?
This summer, I entered a raffle at the Oldsmobile Museum in Lansing to win a ’65 Cutlass convertible…the drawing was on November 9th. I didn’t win. 🙁
Ha! This past summer I entered a raffle to win a 1970 Dodge Challenger 440. I didn’t win that one either!
I don’t like Fords and, in particular, I don’t like their color palette for the same reason. I’ve been suckered in a few times because, of the domestic manufacturers, Ford has had some really good color choices. I once bought a 2001 Cobra because it came in a really sharp orange-red shade, then later bought an Escape because of the aqua-teal color. I didn’t keep either vehicle very long (the Escape only six weeks).
So, yeah, ever since Henry Ford’s “you can have any color so long as it’s black” days, Ford color selection has been pretty good. The vehicles themselves? Not so much.
There are quite a few cars nowadays that only offer black interiors, and of course many exterior colors, if not black, are greyscale.
Actually black interiors are just as rare now as the blues and greens of yore. What’s being passed as black in every modern car I have been in is a dark dingy charcoal grey often contrasted with light grey headliner and pillars. It’s just more shades of grey, a proper black interior is one your black RayBan sunglasses disappear into without a trace.
Lime green is so 1870s. My ’70 coupe was originally that color, though it had been primered over by the time it got to me. The new Mustangs are pretty impressive to Mustang lovers like me. You don’t have to have to splurge on the V8, as the V6 and especially the Eco Boost Four have been quite impressive.The four matches the power output of my old NorthStar Cadillac. I agree about the Riviera. The first gen cars are amazing but with ten mpg. fuel economy you were smart to keep your daily.
Understand your logic. Any pale blue Morris Minor convertible gets me excitedly pointing, and I’d take an early Sunbeam Rapier any day.
Dad had one, and I wanted him to have the other. Sort of.
Heck, I’d take a pale blue Minor and nobody in the family’s owned one. 🙂
My little guy’s favorite color is the same, he was strongly advocating for a Lime Green Wrangler when we did that a few years ago.
That Mustang in that Lime color is very compelling, too bad (I suppose, right?) that you didn’t realize it earlier in the year. Perhaps it’ll come back again in a few years but I’ll admit it does look quite good in that shade. Add the family history to it, and yeah, I’ll bet you’ll keep your eye on the color charts from now on…But a Riviera will be a nice consolation prize and there’s always the 2022’s.
I am sometimes amazed at the things I don’t notice. All the media outlets were testing lime green GT500s this year, and I must have thought it was a Shelby-only color.
A younger girl in a lime green Wrangler T-boned my wife’s lease Malibu about five years ago, so one of those would be a hard no from the lady in the house. 🙂
“Regardless, missing out on the Mustang hurts a little, as missed opportunities always do.”
I feel your pain, Aaron. Back in the winter of 2016, there was a first year of this generation Mustang at a buy-here pay-here type place near me (closed up now). Having never frequented such a place, I didn’t get there right away. I waited for it to be closed on a Sunday and went to look over the car. 2015 3.7L V-6 with a stick; in Wimbledon White with Guardsman Blue stripes, like you’d see on a classic GT-350. Low miles, like 2300 and change. When I bought my 2007 in the winter of ‘08, it was a similar situation only at CARMAX, with 1127 on the clock. I decided I wanted to test drive it. Then it snowed. A lot. When the storm had cleared, and the roads were back to normal, the car was gone. I never did get the chance. Then Ford discontinued the V-6 Mustangs 😢
All for the best though. It would’ve replaced my 2007 as my DD, and with our rush hours here in Baltimore, shifting would not have been fun.
On sad thing for me was that very summer, my Mustang’s transmission went up, and I was forced to have it rebuilt. Ouch. BUT, I ended up getting to keep the car and enjoy it as a pleasure vehicle, and purchased a new Civic Coupe as a more efficient DD than that 2015 Mustang would have been. So maybe that missed opportunity was for the best. My turbocharged little Civic is an absolute hoot to drive!
Looks like those will both go down as rare Mustang colors, I forgot 71s even came in lime like that, which looked super cool given the styling. I really like the new ones in those higher impact colors, grabber blue and yellow included, they really make the subtler lines pop where the greys and whites most of them seem to be(around here at least) may as well be invisible.
I’m actually now seeing a lot of parallels to the 71-73 and the current gen. The styling isn’t really traditionalist Mustang cues – old one looked like a sleeker Torino, new one looks like a sleeker fusion. The performance is at its peak – girth not withstanding(actually both are big and heavy, another parallel), the 351 Cleveland 4bbl and 429CJ were the best engineered and most competitive Ford engines ever up to that point, and the same could be said about the ecoboost and Coyote variants. And looming on the horizon was/is a very controversial reimagining of the Mustang nameplate – the Mustang II and the Mach E.
I’ll just put this over here….
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/new/searchresults.action?zip=77202&showNegotiable=true&sortDir=ASC&colors=Green&sourceContext=untrackedWithinSite_false_0&distance=50000&sortType=PRICE&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity=d2#listing=287069839
Dave, you’re an enabler! 🙂 🙂 🙂
I understand the urge to chase nostalgia. My dad had a rusting 1979 Saab 900 Turbo, it was an icon of my childhood and I could always hear the signature turbo whine coming up the street. This one is very similar (his was blue) and I was very tempted to open a bid, but didn’t. Like that green Mustang, finding another one will be difficult and the window has likely closed:
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1980-saab-900/