ICMC - October's Featured Car

After getting our 1966 Mustang convertible to the point we where we felt it was showable, we decided it was time to think about another project. We figured it would be another Mustang, perhaps a GT! Then, in the spring of 1999, we met some then new members of the club, Dave and Liz. They have a 1993 Fox body convertible. Well, they weren’t about to sell it, so the hunt was on.

It is unbelievable how many "like new" Fox body convertibles are advertised out there. On a scale of 1 to 10, of the cars we chose to look at, nearly 99% were less than a 5 in our book. Then in the early summer of 1999 we were helping our daughter and son-in-law in Olympia with a yard project. They mentioned that they had seen a car we might be interested in. We took a break and went to see what they had discovered. It was a convertible. The color was great. The owner let us take it for a spin and it had power!! Very nice! It did have a drawback: It was a 2-seater sports model ASC McLaren. We hadn’t been planning on a 2-seater. We decided to continue to look for a Mustang convertible.

On November 2nd, we drove to the Tacoma/Fife area to look at yet another Fox convertible that we were told was close to a 10. Again, we were very disappointed. As long as we were so close to our daughter’s house, we decided we would join them for dinner and when we arrived, we told them about the car we had just looked at and all the other disappointments of our summer’s hunt. They suggested we should call to see if the McLaren was still available. We did and it was, so we went to take another look. We looked at the car again then told the owner we were going out to dinner and would think about it. After we ate, as we were sitting around visiting, our son-in-law said to call the owner and make an offer. We went back to his house and, after a couple of hours of visiting and talking about cars, we headed home with two cars, arriving home in Ferndale at 2:00 in the morning!

That is the story of how we became the owners of a 1989 ASC McLaren. It had only 24,000 original miles and all the paperwork from when it was sold new in Omaha, Nebraska. It is #97 of only 247 made in 1989. The car features a tan Eurostyle Cambria cloth convertible top, a hard-shelled, flush-mount top cover with power latch, high output 5.0 liter V8 engine and 4-speed automatic overdrive transmission. It is finished in Sikkens Candy Red Metallic with custom graphics by Jack Edwards. Inside, the custom Recaro seats are finished in tan saddle leather. Besides the above, it also sports a keyless entry system, custom gold aluminum alloy wheels and power everything, all of which makes it a car to love. Everything is stock other than the Flowmaster exhaust system we had installed. From the factory, there were no mufflers! That was a little too noisy for our tastes.

We enjoy taking our McLaren out on the road rain or shine. We hope to see you all at the shows next year for a better look-see!!

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