Feature: Perfection Down Under

Abused and abandoned, this rare 1969 428 Mach 1 Cobra Jet has gone from a dilapidated heap to one of the most original and pristine Mustangs Australia has ever seen

Originality. If there was any one thing that has driven Pete Hewiston through the innumerable restorations he’s completed over the years, then his unrelenting quest for originality would have to be it. In Pete’s world, you simply don’t restore a car unless you’re going to put it back to original. There are no ifs. No ands. No buts. You either bring a car back to factory specs, or you just don’t bother.

Chat to Pete about this and that and you’d be hard pushed to tell that lurking inside this big, affable Queenslander is a car nut with the sheer bloody mindedness and merciless attention to detail to match even the meanest of army drill sergeants. But get him into his stride on his favourite subject and I’d reckon he’d even give Full Metal Jacket’s R. Lee Ermy a run for his money.

‘Anyone can restore a car,’ says Pete. ‘But to restore it to 100 per cent factory original is a massive undertaking. A lot of people start out with the best of intentions, only to discover that it’s a lot harder and more expensive than they ever thought it would be. And that’s when they start to cut corners and let the car down. Sure, it’s been difficult on occasions, but I’ve always stayed true to my cars. However they were made, that’s how I’ve restored them – back to original.’

Pouring over Pete’s sensational-looking Mustang, I have no difficulty believing his assertions. Admittedly, I’m not an authority on Mustangs, but the attention to detail ploughed into this car is nothing short of breathtaking. As Pete gives me the guided tour, he points out the seemingly trivial details that have earned this car its high-profile concours awards.

In the engine bay, every sticker and stamp that’s supposed to be there is present and correct. The pin striping on the bonnet (apparently a common source of mistakes) is millimetre perfect, while the interior is nothing short of flawless. Even the wax crayon markings

made while it was still being built at the factory have been preserved with meticulous care.

It’s incredible, but Pete’s Mustang looks like a brand-new car, which is in stark contrast to
the condition it was in at the time he took delivery of it.

Born into a family of petrolheads, Pete grew up playing in his granddad’s Dodge/Chrysler dealership in the sleepy town of Murwillumbah on the Queensland/New South Wales border. Despite his father being a mechanic, Pete decided not to follow in his footsteps and became a builder instead. But while he might not have been in the trade, cars were most definitely still in his blood and have always been a big part of his life.

‘I’ve never really given it all that much thought, but I guess playing in my grandfather’s garage when I was a kid must have had quite an effect on me,’ he says. ‘I went on to become a builder when I left school, but I’ve always tinkered around with cars and have been restoring them on and off for the last 25 years.’

Despite having a slew of successful restorations behind him, including cars as diverse as a 1929 Dodge, a ’39 Buick, handfuls of Mustangs and an old MG, Pete is always hungry for more and is constantly in search of a new project to sink his teeth into, with his web of contacts extending as far as the States.

‘I’ve got a buyer over there who looks for original cars for me,’ says Pete. ‘In fact, it was him that found the Mach 1. It was just sitting there in this yard in California, abused and abandoned. Despite its condition though, the guy who owned it was asking top money for it. I refused initially, as I didn’t think a ’69 Mach 1 was worth what he was asking. But then the buyer got back to me, saying that the owner was willing to drop his price. It was only then that I found out that it was a 428 Cobra Jet and I just about bit his hand off!’

Needless to say, Pete couldn’t believe his luck in finding a rare 428. Its paint may have been flaking and faded, and it was definitely more than a little rough around the edges, but it was a complete, unmolested, matching numbers car with just 15,000 miles on the clock – the perfect basis for a back-to-original restoration.

‘It’s just a freak of a car,’ Pete grins. ‘Everything was there, the original engine, gearbox, the build sheet, everything. It’s unbelievable. The car hadn’t been touched before, so I had the perfect place to start from. I was able to take lots of photos and reference points so everything could be put back the way it was.’

Having found the car towards the end of 2007, Pete had it put in a container and shipped back home to Australia. And it was there that his luck suddenly ran out, when an incident on the docks allegedly saw an Australian Customs official drive another car into the back of the Mustang, destroying the boot and taking both the rear quarter panels out in the process.

While he may have been gutted at having an unnecessary and unwelcome headache foisted upon him, Pete had little option but to get on with the job and started work on the car in December ’07. By February, he had the damage repaired with new old stock parts and the car stripped down to a bare shell ready for painting. Thankfully, aside from a bit of corrosion in the battery tray, there was no rust to deal with, which made Pete’s life considerably easier – although he did have to fix a bodged repair where some lazy mechanic had just cut a hole in the engine bay to get at the clutch carriage as he obviously couldn’t be bothered removing the brake master cylinder like he was supposed to!

With the Mustang mounted on his own home-made mobile rotisserie, Pete and a couple of obliging mates ended up pushing the car down the road to the Enterprise Collision Centre in South Tweed Heads – and got more than a few funny looks along the way. ‘We had to push that car about half a kilometre down the road,’ laughs Pete. ‘It was still stinking hot at that point, but thankfully it only took us 10 minutes to get there.’

Take one look at the results though, and you just know that Pete’s efforts that day weren’t in vain. The finish on that Mustang is brilliant, to say the least.

‘It’s hard to believe that it hasn’t been machine polished,’ says Pete. ‘That finish is straight out of the gun. The guy that did it is called Brendon Willis. He’s just a young bloke, but does a fantastic job. He actually painted after work, because he didn’t want any interruptions, or any dust getting into the booth. To be honest, I just don’t think he wanted me looking over his shoulder all the time…’

While the bodywork was being finished off, Pete carried on sorting the rest of the car out. Although it had been neglected over the years, the big 428 was still in pretty good shape. Despite the fact it only really needed a good clean-up, Pete broke one of his golden rules and modified a few of the oil galleries to prevent the engine’s inherent oil starvation problem from ever flaring up again. Still, nothing else was changed during the rebuild and the engine remains just the same as the day it rolled out of the factory all those years ago.

In the same meticulous fashion, Pete went through the whole car, reconditioning all that could be saved and replacing everything that couldn’t with genuine new old stock parts,
with the exception of the wiring loom, which he had to make himself – using factory schematics, of course.

Like the rest of the car, the Mustang’s interior was a mix of good and bad. The rear seats had to be completely reupholstered, while the front seats just needed a good clean to look like new again. Although he was keen on doing virtually everything himself, Pete decided to send the 428’s gauges and clock back to a specialist company in Mid-Ohio to be completely refurbished. There at Classic Instruments, the gauges were re-chromed, recalibrated and reprinted to make them indistinguishable from new – much like the rest of the car.

Incredibly, just eight months after he started work on the car, Pete rolled the Mustang out of his shed looking just like it did the day it left the factory. Although he intended to show it at concours, Pete naturally couldn’t resist taking the old girl for a drive – much to the delight of the locals. ‘I had a squirt down a few of the local roads, and I thought, “this is going to end in disaster or I’m going to end up losing my licence,” chuckles Pete. ‘It’s a handsome old car and a beautiful piece of history, but to be honest, they’re pretty fast!’

Given its pedigree and its uncompromising originality, it’s little wonder that the 428 won Best of Show in the 2008 Queensland Mustang Club concours before going on to win the same award at the Nationals a few months later. Still, as much as he appreciates the recognition for all his hard work, winning trophies isn’t why Pete has ploughed so much time and effort into getting everything absolutely right.

‘I do it for the sake of the cars,’ says Pete. ‘I believe that cars are like time capsules. I could die tomorrow, but the car will still be around for years to come and I feel that the people who decide to restore them have a duty to preserve their originality and let the next generation see what they were meant to be like.

‘It can be really difficult to stay true to a car. It’s much easier to modify them and use aftermarket parts than it is to hunt down the originals and restore the car to how it should be. That takes commitment and discipline to achieve, but that’s what I’ve done with every car I’ve restored.’

Sceptics might scoff at Pete’s uncompromising attitude towards his cars. But only a fool would question his motives. With so many classics being converted or modified, the number of truly original cars is fast running out. But at least while Pete’s still living and breathing. we can rest assured that there will always be a pristine example of a 1969 428 Mustang Mach 1 kicking around for us to enjoy. And for that, we have to be grateful.

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