Jim and Shirley Greenlees are certainly good at maintaining relationships.
Not only has the former Richmond couple been married for 57 years, their love affair with Ford Mustangs has been ongoing since getting the keys to their classic pony car 39 years ago.
On Saturday, they will be among “family” as Lansdowne Centre’s parking lot will be packed with more than 400 Mustangs of varying vintages for the 35th International Mustang Meet that is part of the classic car’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
“I just love the look of them,” says Jim, 85, who bought the 1965 Wimbledon White Mustang from the Jim Pattison dealership on Vancouver’s Main Street back in 1975.
It cost him $2,000.
“There’s just something about them that just looks right.”
Jim is a dedicated Ford fan and the 1965 Mustang’s third owner — the original owner took delivery of it in Bellevue, Washington in late December 1965, making it one of the early models to roll off the production line in Los Angeles.
“They are just great cars and have been for 50 years,” says Jim, who started his love affair with cars as a young man when he worked on his modified, 1931 Ford hot rod in his parents’ garage in east Vancouver where friends would come and hang out to watch Jim’s progress on the project.
Not long afterwards, he met and married Shirley, now 83.
“I knew he was a car guy from early on,” she says with a big smile and recalls trips in the hot rod when rain water would shoot up through tiny gaps in the floorboards and soak the floor mats. “That was fun.”
Jim would often take the hot rod to Abbotsford to drag race.
“It was a two-hour drive out there back then. There was no highway,” Jim says. “I’d take the seats out, except for the driver’s and go race.”
While Jim recalls the fun, Shirley remembers the odd tow back to Vancouver
But when it came time to settle down, move to Richmond and start a family in the Broadmoor area, where they lived for 37 years, the hot rod was gone and a series of Fords graced their driveway, including the 1965 Mustang.
Today, they also have a 2002 Mustang as their daily driver.
But the 1965 Mustang was, back then, also used on a regular basis and the subject of some comprehensive, down-to-bare-metal restoration work Jim undertook after he retired from the printing business.
“I guess with printing I was always good with my hands — I used to work with the old movable type — and pretty much taught myself how to repair and restore things,” he says.
The relationship with the Mustang grew and Jim helped found the Greater Vancouver Mustang Association which is the group organizing Saturday’s event which is drawing cars from as deep into the U.S. as California, and as far east in Canada as Saskatchewan.
On Saturday the couple will be full of pride as they get into their ’65 Mustang, which has a mere 175,000 original miles on the odometer, and drive from their Ladner home of the past 17 years to Richmond to be part of the scene sure to delight all car lovers.
“It will be quite amazing to see so many cars from all over the place. And they’ll all be Fords,” Jim says with a smile.
The 35th International Mustang Meet runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Lansdowne Centre (5300 No. 3 Road) and is free to the public.
“It’s going to be a great gathering,” Jim says.
“It’s (being Mustang club members) provided us with a wonderful social experience,” adds Shirley. “We’ve met people from all over the place and gone on lots of road trips. We all share that common bond — a love for Mustangs.”
