I bought several cars from Drew Ford over the years but when I was shopping for a Bronco II in 1984 my sales person was J Bittle. I liked J right away as everybody does. A good guy from Texas and it showed. I was very specific on what I wanted and J was able to ablidge me. We became fast friends.

A year goes by and J calls me up to tell me I need to buy a Mustang from him. I was never a muscle car guy growing up. All my high school buddies were into American Muscle, but I was on the college path. So, J told me to come on down to the dealership and he would give me his personal demo car for a test drive.

A little blurred but youthful J and Bill next to Bill’s first Mustang.

I checked out the 1985 GT and thought this will be fun. I asked J when I needed to bring the car back and he said “two weeks”. What? Yep, I had a brand-new GT for two weeks and had a blast. I drove all over town especially the beach scene. I took all my pals and gals for rides. I learned how to do burn outs. I got my first ticket coming back from Phoenix.

Besides the looks, the power, and the handling, what really sold me on the 5.0 was driving up to Mt. Helix. You know where the stone walls are right on the edge of the road? The sound of that V-8 resonating off the walls was so satisfying. I finally understood the muscle car over mind attraction.

Of course, when I brought the car back to J I said, “Where do I sign?” J made me a heck of a deal, $11,900 out the door!

J was thinking ahead and building his future customer base. Regardless, I was introduced to the American Muscle car culture. I joined the Mustang Club. Made a heap of friends. At one of the first Mustang Club’s by the Bay Car Show I attended, I won a second-place trophy. And J’s beach parties back then were epic.

Not soon after, J quit new car sales at Drew and opened up his own speed shop. The first thing I bought was a 120 MPH speedometer to replace the old stock 90 MPH one.

One day I get a call from J asking to borrow my GT. He said he was manufacturing headers and needed my Mustang to be sure the headers fit the 5.0. I said sure, dropped off the car on my way to work, and went to his shop on Dagget Street afterwards to pick it up.

My Mustang was on the rack with the headers installed. J said he would have them off soon and my stock exhaust back on so I could drive home. I said “HOLD IT! You have headers on my car, so why take them off…let’s make a deal!”. And we did.

So, I bought the very first set of the infamous JBA Headers ever sold. Since then I have put headers on my 2007 GT/CS and on my 2011 and 2014 E-350 vans with gas V-10’s. For the 6.8 liter V-10’s, I gained 75 lbs. of torque. With an exhaust mod fuel consumption improved from 8 MPG to 11! Ha, got to love those JBA Headers.

Not long after getting the headers installed, I took a trip up Highway 1 to Big Sur/Monterey then to Fresno. I got to near San Simeon where road work was being done. The road crew actually had a gate across the highway and were about to close it, but I made it as the last car through.

I pulled over to get a photo of my brand-new GT on the side of the road by the ocean and the pilot car guy said hurry up to catch up. I said okay and looked up the windy road and could see at least 5 miles before the other gate. So, I waited for the cars to travel up the road and hit the accelerator. I had Highway 1 with both lanes all to myself and really opened it up

I caught up to the string of cars traveling at only 10 MPH with a mile, so I hung a u turn and blasted back to the road closure. There I made another u turn and hauled freight to catch up to the line of cars just as they flushed through the northern road closure. What a hoot! Who gets to do that!

Next, I headed across the coast ranges to Fresno. The highway goes over small ridges with about 10 miles of valley before going over another ridge. After a couple of these valleys I realized I could see 10 miles behind me and 10 miles ahead of me at each ridge. So, seeing no CHP ahead or behind, I opened up the GT. I had about 3,000 miles on it by know so felt okay with it broken in enough so I wanted to see how fast I could go. I was passing cars like crazy on the two-lane highway. I don’t know the top number, but I am sure it was north of 120 MPH as that is where the speedo pegged.

When I got back to town I met up with J and told him how much fun I had. I thanked him for turning me on to my Mustang and for hot rodding it, the muscle car culture, and introducing me to the Mustang Club with many great memories yet to be made.

Bill’s 2007 California Special.