When Gale Wise stepped into a Ford dealership in Chicago in 1964, she had no idea that she would make history by becoming the very first person to ever purchase a Ford Mustang.
Wise, who was 22 at the time of her fateful car shopping, is such an important person in the pony car’s history, but her story is even more amazing because she bought the car on April 15, 1964, two days before the Mustang made its official global debut at the New York World’s Fair on April 17, 1964.
At the time, Wise had just become a schoolteacher and needed a new set of wheels to get to her new school. She really wanted a convertible, but the Ford dealership had no convertibles on the lot. Luckily, the salesman was hiding a very special car in the back room of the dealership and Wise was taken by the baby blue stranger right away.
Listen to Wise and her adorable husband recount how they got their hands on the first Mustang ever sold (she paid just $3,400 for it!) and how they would restore it years later in the video below.
