un·bri·dled

The Story Behind the Birth of the Red Mustang Registry
And UNBRIDLED, the official club
The time was October 2012, the place was Sellersville, Pennsylvania. I
had just purchased my first Ford Mustang after a long string of less
than remarkable foreign imports. My wife had recently purchased her
second Mustang and was from a “Ford Family” where any car
without the blue oval was not welcome. She quickly got me immersed
into the car show scene which prompted my first Mustang, a 2010
Torch Red GT Premium. This car was unlike any I had previously owned;
bright red interior, flashy from front to back, with a 310 HP V8 engine, quite a step up from the 200 HP
Ford Taurus I had previously been rolling in.
As Mustang owners, we felt it important to go the Carlisle Ford Nationals in the summer of 2012 and
see what the largest Ford event in the area was like. The weather was rainy and the event was
crowded. I saw the huge swap meet, which was great if I had an old LX or classic sitting in the garage
to be worked on. Parts for newer cars were being hawked by the vendors and while prices were good,
I was not planning on dropping a few grand on anything substantial.
Walking the show field, I got to see a wide assortment of beautiful cars; Fairlanes, Falcons, early classics,
the occasional GT and of course Mustangs. Mustangs as far as the eye could see…. There were
thousands. In the middle of the sea of Mustangs, one thing caught my eye—a field of Yellow. It looked
like the sun blazing in the midday sky, beckoning for all to gaze upon the splendor. Walking through
the field I thought to myself, “Why isn’t there a sea of Red, or any other color at that? What makes
yellow so special?” Returning home from that event, I began my research; learning about the Yellow
Mustang Registry and there 9 year history. I was enthralled with the idea of the camaraderie based on
color and looked to join the Red Mustang Registry. More research on the web revealed three red only
groups. Looking at the sites it was evident that two of them were dead and the other one had 170
members over a five year span. The page was dead and there was no where else to look.
Now I am not a person who has a ton of free time, but I really wanted a group to join. I found my local
car club, which I had joined in October, 2012 to be loosely controlled, with a lot of drama and stress;
not something I wanted to be a part of. I actually volunteered to help the group grow and take an
active role, but the president did not take me up on the offer.