Thanks to a blind date, Lewandowski met the love of his life and his wife of 30 years, Cathy, not long after. “I’m the original Mustang Mike, they’ve been calling me that since I bought my ’71 Mustang in high school,” claimed the man, now 59, who street-raced in his youth and lived only five miles from Detroit Dragway, which closed in ’96. Despite that, though, he was able to afford the V-8 engine and automatic transmission to at least make it fun where it mattered most. Budget constraints meant he wound up with a “nasty, old white car with hub caps on it, no air conditioning, and roll-up windows” cheaper Mustang instead. Lewandowski admits his car was “ugly” when he bought it, as his heart had been set on a ’79 Indy Pace Car instead. “I’ll probably be buried in it, too… it’s senseless to give it up, it’s part of the family now.”
“I bought it off the showroom floor for $6,200 cash, which was a lot of money at the time, but I was fortunate to have had a good job before the recession,” noted the man of his youth.
As the original owner of his ’79 Ford Mustang, he never wanted to give it up. Growing up in Michigan, Lewandowski developed a sentimental side and a tendency to hold on to things. Although his first car was a ’71 Ford Mustang, Michael Lewandowski bought his ’79 model new straight from the factory when he graduated high school that same year-and he’s still racing it today.