Mustang Girl Monday
Kate Hagen’s father was a die-hard Chevy guy, so she grew up around Camaros, Chevelles, El Caminos, and all that stuff, so the first car she remembers noticing was a 1996 Camaro. She said, “around that same point, I remember seeing the Mustang logo, and well, don’t all girls love that running horse? I spent my summers on a ranch in Colorado with some amazing Arabians, and I had horse fever. Then, I found out that the Mustang was actually insipired by the P51, the jaunty little plane I loved watching at all the airshows my dad took me to, and much to his horror, I became a Mustang girl.”
Kate’s first wrench-turning experience was on a ’99 Cobra drag car that was owned by an aquaintence that showed up at the drag strip Kate and her high school boyfriend frequented, saying, “Eventually we started helping him—unloading the car, checking tire pressure, holding the camcorder, etc. Joe, the car’s owner, became like a second father to me. He taught me how to install gears and a diff, got me my first full-time job in a machine shop, and was a mentor and guide throughout college. He’s like a father to me. And it all started with a Mustang.”
Kate continued, “While in college, thanks to a few lucrative internships, I was able to afford my first Mustang—a 2000 GT in the ultra-rare Bright Atlantic Blue. I had discovered the color in a magazine article, and spent months trying to track one down. The closest I found was in Germany, of all places. I had all but given up when, on a chance trip to pick up some fried chicken, I spotted one in the parking lot of a Park and Sell a half mile from my apartment. It took some persuasion, but I managed to secure financing and made her mine. I was so nervous I made my then-boyfriend drive it home, because I wasn’t sure I could manage the manual transmission, having only had two or three lessons in my life to that point. So naturally, the first thing I ever did with that car was take it to a drag strip. I raced it in any way I could throughout college, working my way from the drag strip to autocross and eventually ending up tracking it around Texas World Speedway (RIP).”
After graduation, Kate moved to Houston and started doing “real work” and making a “real salary” and sold her “beloved little track car,” even though it was freshly paid off. She really regrets that, saying, “Ladies, NEVER let a man talk you into doing something you don’t want to do! Lucky for me, the man I bought it from was keen on buying it back, so I knew it went to a good home, for a little while. Then it got sold off and I kind of lost track of it for years. In the meantime, I went through car after car, trying to find one I could connect with. I bought a Competition Orange Boss 302, but after eight months fighting with dealers over various transmission issues, I traded it in on a CTS-V wagon. While an awesome car to say you owned, we never really bonded and I traded it off again. Eventually I ended up, quite accidentally, in another Mustang, a 2012 GT500 in no-nonsense white. That car and I have been everywhere, man. With its creature comforts, decent mileage, and photogenic silhouette, it became my road tripper.”
Kate and her white GT500 have been to 23 states and 1 Canadian Province, countless National Parks, Forests, and monuments, adding, “coast to coast and top to bottom, we lived the phrase See America. From California to Maryland, the Rio Grande to Vancouver. Eventually I’d like to drive her across all 50 states, and I’m almost halfway there.”
But then she got the call asking if she wanted her old blue Mustang back. “The friend I’d sold my blue car to contacted me out of the blue (ha!) and asked if there was any way I could buy it back. He’d been contacted by its current owner, but wasn’t in the position to buy at the time, and between the two of us, we basically have joint custody of the car. I cleared out my savings and drove down to get her. The years hadn’t been terribly kind. She has electrical issues, the interior is disintegrating, she needs a paint job, and the motor ate itself idling in my driveway. But I have big plans to bring her back, pro-touring style, and I know I’ll never let her go again.”
“And then, a couple years after that, while I was visiting Joe back in my hometown, well. Remember that old ’99 Cobra I wrenched on in high school? He gave it to me. He was no longer able to wrench on it or drive it to its potential (with a dog box, even I have trouble with it lol). After it sat for eight years with a blown clutch, we stabbed a trans back in it, loaded it up, and I dragged it to its new home on the far side of the state. I’ve been working on getting that back on a track for the past year and hope to have it racing next season some time.”
So that’s the story of Kate and her three Mustangs, going back about 20 years!
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