Stories from Steve: 1992 SAAC Mustang GT Convertible

This is a great story about a great car! I knew it would be impossible to find this many beautiful low mileage vehicles without unexpected help and this car truly exemplifies that fact.

In January of 2011, I was approached by a car club in Albany, New York, for a tour of our automobiles. This club was not dedicated to the products of one manufacturer, so many people in the group were knowledgeable in all types of cars.

At that point in our collection, I was looking for Fox Body Mustangs, which I felt had and will continue to have a strong following. The group from Albany arrived and were full of information about various car lines, but one young man (young to me was a guy in his 30s) was an expert on Fox Mustangs. We talked about the various years and combinations and I asked him what he would collect.

Immediately, he said, “If I was building a collection, I’d buy that red ’92 GT convertible five speed that is in North Carolina with 50 miles and all the paperwork.”

So I said, “What car are you talking about? I never heard about this car.”

He said, “Well, the owner doesn’t want to sell the car—has never advertised it—but does own an extensive used car lot near Concord, North Carolina.”

“Who is this guy?” I asked “I’ve attended the Charlotte Auto Fair for 20 years and met a lot of people.”

He responded immediately, telling me it was Jimmy Morrison of Morrison Auto Sales. I jumped at the name, since he always brings 10–12 cars to sell at the fair, but had never mentioned the ’92 with practically no miles.

Obviously, after the weekend, I called Jimmy and asked about the car. He responded, in his typical southern accent, that indeed he had purchased one with 50 miles the year before, but was not interested in selling it. I said I would leave a day early for Charlotte if I could see the car. He was hesitant but said okay.

I drove off early for the Charlotte Show as planned and stopped at Morrison’s car lot. Wow, was it huge! The place looked like a good-sized new car dealership—several large buildings and one whole side of the road dedicated to trucks.

Jimmy came out of the office. We talked briefly about business, and then the tour began. First, we toured the office building, then the sales room, then the huge number of trucks and cars in the outside lot. Then the fun began as we looked at row upon row of older cars in a large, stand-alone building.

The problem for me was the lack of a ’92 red Mustang. Next, we jumped in his truck and rolled through the countryside to his automotive museum. It was a great place, but still no Mustang. After that, we were off again and ended up at another used car lot and building. “You own this company also, Jimmy?” I said with surprise in my voice. “Yup, seems like I’ve got stuff everywhere.”

And indeed, he did because not only was the car lot full of cars, but also the office building. As we looked at car after car, I finally noticed the red Mustang in the far-left corner. “There it is, Jimmy. You’ve stored it practically out of sight.”

Jimmy replied, “Yup, and that’s where it’s going to stay.” He let me look at everything on the car, brought me back to the main lot, and said “I’ll see you at the car show tomorrow.”

Well, he not only saw me the next day, but also the next after that, and finally he saw me again Saturday afternoon, just before I was scheduled to head north. Four days of beating around the bush came down to a one-minute discussion.

“Jimmy, are you going to sell me that car?”

 “I will, if you stop yapping and pay my price.”  “Yes, I will.”

 “Then the deal’s done. Send me a check when you get home.”

Nothing I had said changed his mind on price whatsoever, but at least I got the car and kept a friend.

Now, for the third part of the story. The first part was how I found out about it, the second part was buying it, and the third part is what we learned about its history four years later.

When the car arrived here by transport in 2011, we quickly looked through all the paperwork I had seen in North Carolina to be sure everything was correct and in order. However, it was not until I was writing this history that we looked closely at the very first title. It showed the initial owner was SAAC. I had never considered that these were the same initials used by the Shelby American Automobile Club.

Taking a long shot, we looked at our copy of the 1997 Shelby American World Registry and found a section at the back of the book entitled “1991–1993 SAAC Mustangs.” Whoa—what does this mean? We have never heard of this car, and yet SAAC was giving it an eleven-page spread in its world registry. After several emails and phone calls, we were told to contact an expert on SAAC Mustangs, Richard Plescia. He asked for the VIN # and immediately told us we had one of two cars bought by the SAAC car company, but never modified.

It seems that in 1991, two of the Directors of SAAC, along with a Ford upper echelon manager, had decided to resurrect the Shelby GT-350 concept using the Fox body Mustang GT as a base. They formed the SAAC Car Company, built prototypes, and started to take orders for this custom-built, high-performance Mustang. By then, Carroll Shelby was under contract to Lee Iacocca at Chrysler, so they were not able to use the Shelby name. Instead, they called their car the MK I. A year later, they changed the name to MK II to reflect the addition of a convertible to the line. A company called Martin Engineering was doing the modifications for SAAC and our car has the Martin control number on the windshield.

In all, they sold 65 cars before production ended in 1993 because of competition from Ford and their new Cobra. So, why did we have an un-modified MK II? It seems there was a gentleman named Mr. George Nicolini from Peru (yeah, that Peru in South America) that had ordered 2 cars from SAAC, but never had them built. Due to political unrest in his country, he could not proceed. When SAAC closed, they sold the 2 cars to clean out inventory. Therefore, in reality, they ordered 64 cars from Ford, but only modified 62.

Our car (it was to be the #006 MK II) was purchased from SAAC by Glenn Boyd, owner of Crossroads Ford in Cary, North Carolina. He sold it to Harold Russell Autos in October of 2010, who sold it to Jimmy the same day. We are the fourth owners of the car with only 50 miles on the odometer.

Written August 15, 2015, Steve Ames

Last Edited: August 14, 2025, JA