The hit TV series Sex and the City portrays the lives of four women living and making their way in the big city of Gotham. If any of them-Carrie, Miranda, Samantha or Charlotte-had Kevin Lohse's creampuff '66 convertible to drive around, they'd be even more irresistible to us Mustang fans, even though New York isn't a car town in the normal sense of the word.
Regardless of the town, we'll take Kevin's cruiser on a ride anywhere with its full gamut of cool stuff that makes it such an appealing piece of early Mustang history. While most of us get excited about K-code 289s and other goodies that came in these '65-'66 cars, Kevin's car is the perfect companion piece to those high-revving small-blocks that most of us dream about. At the other end of the spectrum is the sewing-machine-smooth 200-cube inline six that pushes this Springtime Yellow convert down the highway. Behind is a trusty C4 automatic and integral-carrier rearend with its 2.83:1 axle ratio-remember, six-cylinder cars didn't come with the 8-inch (or 9-inch in a K-code car) carrier found in V-8 Mustangs.
Options on this purest of Mustangs are quite basic by 21st-century standards, but it's still interesting to hear about the added equipment back in the '65 day. This car has a rare (more on this in a moment) bench seat, deluxe seat belts with a seat-belt warning light, a day/night rearview mirror, a remote driver-side outside mirror, an AM radio, and, last but not least, a power top. Kevin took a few liberties with a set of spinner wheel covers-which cover 14-inch wheels and help beautify the wheel-and-195/75R14-tire combo-and an export brace.
While the nature of this car is back-to-basics, the attention bestowed on it is anything but basic. Although it had just 87,000 miles on the clock when Kevin brought it home, he told us it "was in need of refurbishment, but still in mostly factory trim." Furthermore, Kevin restored "the engine compartment to Mustang Club of America (MCA) driven concourse standards, which took me about three months." Gary's Mustang in Clackamas, Oregon (Kevin's home state), spent a solid month getting the body into its current pristine condition. Towards the end of the project, Kevin and buddy Scott Cutler once worked non-stop for 40 straight hours detailing and reassembling the engine bay for a local show.
All this effort is clearly worth it as the little ragtop came out as nice as can be. And not only that, it's something of a rare one, too, as Kevin explains: "Of the 72,119 convertibles built for '66, only 3,190 came with a bench seat." All the more reason this trip back in time would be a big hit in any city-large or small.