REAL PEOPLE
Mustang Ben Driven to restore automotive treasure, the Shelby Mustang
Ben Wagoner spends a lot of time in his shop, restoring older cars to mint condition.
T By Lisa Kimble
Photos by Casey Christie
There are fewer than 13,000 Shelby Mustangs in existence in the world today. Four of those rare muscle cars are safeguarded at the northwest Bakersfield home of businessman Ben Wagoner who has been restoring the automotive treasure for the past nine years. “I’ve always liked the Mustang. My first car was a Mustang,” Wagoner said. “When I began collecting and repairing the fourspeeds, the Shelby was the Mustang of Mustangs.” The high-performance modified Ford Mustang, built by Shelby American from 1965 to 1970, was the car of Wagoner’s high school dreams, and forty-something males. “They didn’t make a lot of them, and half of those made were probably totaled, which makes them so rare.” Inside his 3,600-square-foot industrial-sized garage, Wagoner, with the help of two other car enthusiasts, has meticulously dismantled, repaired and restored ’67 and ’68 GT 500s, a ’68 GT 500 KR and a 1970 GT 350. In car jargon, those are mighty nice sets of wheels. 28
Bakersfield Life
March 2011
The only part of the process he isn’t involved with is the painting of the cars. “I’ve always enjoyed cars and taking one that looks like a basket-case and putting detail into it to make it concourse-correct,” said the 46-year-old owner of Air Control Services. His passion is part hobbyist, part curator of a collection of Americana — the elite of the muscle car family. Three of his four projects sit outside the garage of his walled and gated compound, gleaming in the sunlight. “These are investment-grade cars,” Wagoner added. He points to his current restoration, a shell of a car parked underneath the covered patio outside the sacristy that is his garage. “You do get a lot of satisfaction taking a car that looks like that and turning it into a gold class car.” For many car collectors, the thrill is in the flip. “I don’t do it for profit,” Wagoner said. Although he’s been offered “substantial” amounts of money to sell his Shelbys, he rehabilitates them so as to add to the value of his collection. It is an experience that at times is both a stress-reliever and a stress-inducer, he said. Nor will he say exactly how much he has spent fine-tuning his cars. “A lot,” he added with a firm nod.