Member Spotlight: Roger's 1966 Ford Mustang "The Yellow Mustang"

In 2002 a 1966 Ford Mustang showed up at the Daytona Turkey Run with a hand-painted message across the hood: "It ain't done but its here." The car had been dragged out of a field two years before that, and it had just covered roughly 200 miles from West Palm Beach on the strength of a rebuild Roger Palmer had done almost entirely himself, in his own garage, down to the paint. Twenty-four years later the same Mustang — now carrying painted graphics that read THE YELLOW MUSTANG — has driven the entire length of Route 66. It just took two trips and thirteen and a half years to get there.

Roger's car is one of the Feature Ready builds in The Garage at AutoShowList, the tier reserved for the most complete member profiles on the platform. The full build profile for The Yellow Mustang has the specs, the gallery, and the trophy case. Here's the story behind them.

Two Years Out of a Field

"Pulled out of a field. Took over 2 years to get on the road," is how Roger describes the start of it, which is about as much drama as he allows himself anywhere in the build story. What makes a field car a realistic project at all is the year: 1966 was the Mustang's high-water mark, with 607,568 built, still the largest single model-year total in the car's history. That volume is the reason the reproduction parts catalog for a '66 coupe is as deep as it is six decades later, and Roger leaned on it — the suspension was replaced with new components sourced mostly from National Parts Depot's Ocala, Florida location, one of the big classic-Ford warehouses in the Southeast.

The hood graphic came off after those first seasons. The car's debut at the Turkey Run — the Daytona Beach Street Rods' Thanksgiving-weekend show that has run in the Daytona International Speedway infield since 1989, and is generally reckoned the largest combined car show and swap meet in the country — set the tone for everything since: finish it enough to drive it, then drive it.

A 306 Under the Hood

The engine is a 1984 Ford 5.0 High Output V8, bored thirty thousandths over. In its original home, the 1984 Mustang GT, that engine was rated at 175 horsepower — modest by modern numbers and a serious step up from what a base 1966 coupe left the factory with. The .030-inch overbore takes the 302's 4.000-inch bores out to 4.030, which puts actual displacement at roughly 306 cubic inches, hence the shorthand every Ford person uses for it.

The engine and transmission are the two jobs Roger farmed out. Everything else on the car he did himself. Exhaust is deliberately restrained — "just a mild tone," in his words — which is the right call on a car that has spent this much of its life on interstates rather than in a judging lane. The wheels and tires are period correct, keeping the stance honest to 1966 even with two decades of newer Ford under the hood.

The Metalwork He Did Himself

This is the part that separates a driver built at home from a driver bought finished. Roger fabricated the rear fender tips out of sheet metal and welded them on; more than twenty years later, he says, they still look great. He also hand-built the car's rain gutters, because the originals were too far gone to repair.

That second one is worth pausing on. The drip rails on a first-generation Mustang are one of the classic rust traps — water sits in the channel, the seam along the A-pillar cracks and blisters, and the corrosion works outward from underneath the chrome. The reproduction market covers the molding, the polished trim that snaps over the top, but the gutter itself is structure welded to the roof. When it's gone, somebody has to make one. Roger made two.

He also reversed the hood opening and laid down the painted THE YELLOW MUSTANG graphics that give the car its name, over a color the profile lists as Yellow Chrome. If you're evaluating a project car with this kind of rust, our cold-weather inspection checklist covers where to press hardest before you commit.

Camaro Seats and Sequential Taillights

The interior swap is a fourth-generation Camaro donation: high-back bucket seats out of a 1994 Camaro, which is a common and sensible upgrade for anyone planning long days behind the wheel rather than fifteen-minute laps of a show field. Original '66 low-backs look right and support nothing.

Out back, Roger added sequential taillights. The 1965-66 Mustang's three-segment tri-bar lenses are practically purpose-built for the effect, and it's one of the few visual mods on the car that reads as modern. The stereo was a gift: "New one that my girls bought for me." Seven modifications listed on the profile in total, across engine, suspension, wheels and tires, exhaust, interior, exterior, and audio — a short list for a twenty-four-year ownership, and every entry on it earned.

Route 66, In Two Installments

In 2012 Roger and his best friend pointed the Mustang north out of West Palm Beach and kept going. Maine first, then Hemmings' monthly cruise-in in Bennington, Vermont, where the magazine has been headquartered since the late 1960s. Then Pittsburgh. Then the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Then Chicago, where they picked up Route 66 and turned west.

They spent the Fourth of July in a hotel watching fireworks over the Gateway Arch in St. Louis — "that was the only reservation we had," Roger notes, which tells you exactly how the trip was planned. From there it was two-lane at whatever pace looked interesting. It ended in Oklahoma City, at 110 to 115 degrees every day, with air conditioning that Roger describes as "nonexistent over 100." They turned south for Atlanta and called it.

The road was still there. In September 2025 he took his wife out to Tulsa, picked the route back up where he'd abandoned it, and drove to Santa Monica. Route 66 ran 2,448 miles from Chicago to the coast before it was decommissioned in 1985, and Roger had now covered all of it — over thirteen and a half years, in the same car.

His advice is specific and worth repeating: "I highly recommend the trip, plan on 3 weeks or so to stop and enjoy all there is while it's still there." A turn-by-turn Route 66 guidebook is genuinely useful on the western half, where the alignment splits and disappears into frontage roads. And when you get to the end of it: "say hi to Dan for me, he runs the Route 66 both on the pier." That's Dan Rice, past president of the California Route 66 Association, who trademarked and installed the End of the Trail sign on the Santa Monica Pier in 2009 and runs the shop beside it. If you're planning something similar, our guide to planning a road trip to a car show covers the mechanical prep that makes a drive like Roger's survivable.

A Trophy Case With One Trophy In It

The trophy case on Roger's profile has three entries, and only the first one is a trophy:

• "Only 1. A second place plaque."
• "This is not a show car, it's a driver."
• "I'M DRIVING MY DREAM CAR."

That is a complete statement of intent, and it's a useful counterweight to the way car culture is usually presented online. A car that has crossed the country twice, been painted in its owner's garage, and wears fender tips he shaped himself is not competing with trailer queens and isn't trying to. If you've ever wondered where a car like this actually belongs on a weekend, the difference between a cruise-in and a judged show is exactly the question — and the answer for most drivers is the cruise-in.

See the Full Build

The Mustang now lives in Canton, Georgia, north of a metro area with one of the strongest recurring car scenes in the Southeast — the Atlanta car show calendar is a good place to look for it. Specs, the full gallery, and Roger's build story in his own words are on the 1966 Ford Mustang "The Yellow Mustang" profile page. For more member builds, browse The Garage, or check what's showing near you this weekend.

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