Best Husband Ever Surprises New Wife with Dream Car
Tracy Sullivan saw her first Mustang when she was six. “I went nuts over it. I kept telling anyone who would listen that I wanted one. I never lost that.’’ About 30 years later, her enthusiasm unabated, she finally bought her dream, a bright red Mustang.
She drove it constantly and took it to shows frequently, always enjoying the interactions with people and winning awards as well. As so often happens, though, other circumstances came up and Tracy made a tough but reasonable decision to sell her Mustang. “I regretted it instantly,’’ she says.
She tried to buy the Mustang back, but the man she sold it to was flipping it and asking far too much money, so she had to give up. She still went to and enjoyed all the same car shows she used to, but it just wasn’t the same. Her fiancée, Phil Sullivan, could tell. He suggested other cars and they looked at plenty, but her inner six-year-old still had a voice. “We would go look at other cars during the day, and then at night I’d sneak online and look at Mustangs,’’ she recalls. After seeing a very pretty but expensive and non-original pink convertible at a dealership, she decided, “I want a pink Mustang and I’m not going to shop for MGs or any other cars anymore.’’
Wedding plans took priority over car shopping for a while, but little did she know that Phil already had something in the works. “I used to see her with her car and when somebody would walk up with his grandson or something, she would talk to them and open the door up and let the kid sit in it. After she sold the car, she just didn’t have the same way of interacting with people. I said, ‘You know what, she obviously loves a Mustang. I’m going to find her a Mustang.’’’ Preferably a pink one.
Phil perused eBay and found an expired ad for a 1967 notchback that was mostly in pieces and in need of restoration. The paint listed was Dusk Rose, a factory color that is a light, powdery pink. After a few back and forth emails that took weeks, the seller in Wisconsin offered to get the car built, hopefully in time for Tracy’s favorite car show, but if not then, for their wedding.
This meant they had about six months to get everything ready. The job was to be done well and done correctly, and Phil coordinated with the builder in Wisconsin, Tracy’s brother, and various parts suppliers in secret, even using a separate email address. The only breach in security came when Phil was still in the hospital after a medical procedure. He got a text on his phone and, unable to reach it from his bed, asked Tracy to check it. It read “Good news, the car is being painted!’’
Tracy asked the obvious question, “Are you getting me a car?’’ He played it off pretty well, but her radar was up.
Tracy was right to get suspicious again for the much-anticipated car show before their wedding, but the car wasn’t ready and Phil had to deny it yet again. It was even doubtful that it would be ready for the wedding, but the seller in Wisconsin was giving it everything. “Eventually, he stopped charging me for any of the labor, just the parts and that’s it. I could tell that he was just as excited and just as into this project as I was,’’ Phil says.
They couldn’t pull it off, though. The wedding happened with no Mustang, and Tracy’s suspicions subsided, but Phil knew that another of their favorite shows, Ford-Lincoln-Mercury Day at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, was just a few weeks away and that the Dusk Rose Mustang would likely be ready in time for it. “I called the executive director, Sheldon Steele, and asked about presenting it to Tracy out on the show field. He said we should do it on the floor of the main gallery of the carriage house inside the museum, make a presentation out of it. I said, ‘Wow, that sounds amazing.’’’
As the car was being finished, Phil consulted a Mustang expert about its history and specifications. Phil and the rest of the team were then made aware that no other Mustang built in 1967 featured the same combination of options, including a rear body panel that was finished in grey and noted as a factory error. Even classic Mustangs aren’t exactly considered rare cars, but in terms of specifications, this one was essentially one of a kind.
This discovery spurred everyone on even further, and the car was ready a week before the show. It spent a few days at the museum, and Phil dropped in every day and detailed it. “Visitors would get curious about the car,’’ he says, “so I would tell them the whole story. It got me even more excited for the big unveiling.’’
The day before the Sunday unveiling, the Burlington couple’s young granddaughter passed away. Neither Phil nor Tracy slept much that night, but in the morning, Phil insisted that they go to the car show. “I had been crying all night,’’ Tracy says. “I thought he was crazy for making me go to this thing, and I certainly didn’t want to, but I thought that maybe he needed it to get his mind off of things for a bit, so I agreed.’’
When they heard over the PA about a presentation in the museum in a few minutes, Tracy recalls that Phil kept stalling and acting weird. When he relented and they went in, there was a car in the middle of the floor, under a cover. “I still had no idea,’’ Tracy says. “I was exhausted. Someone grabbed a microphone and started talking in front of the car, and before I knew it, he had introduced Phil and then he started telling the whole story.’’
Tracy hadn’t thought about a car for weeks, but right then she was reminded of the text message and all her suspicions, and it all came together. “Then I realized why he had dragged me out of the house that morning. It was a much-needed boost,’’ she adds.
Tracy and Phil—who drives a 1965 Pontiac GTO Convertible finished in Iris Mist (light purple)—now both have cars to enjoy and take to shows, and they are both extremely happy with how her car turned out. Restored correctly and to its original specifications, it is as fun to drive as it is to look at. Today, they’re both enjoying the Dusk Rose over white 1967 Mustang, and Phil has no qualms about driving a pink car.
Tracy even notes that it seems like he enjoys it as much as she does. Eventually, though, he’ll have to switch to the passenger’s seat because Tracy says, “I’m going to drive it, and I’m going to drive it a lot.’’
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