In 1964, during the first hour of Mustang production, three convertibles were assembled using a combination of Falcon and 1963-coded Ford parts. Almost immediately after being built, Ford sent all three 1964.5 convertible Mustangs to tuner/modifier Holman Moody for some major modifications. The plan was to turn them into a trio of official pace cars for the Indy 500 and that's almost what happened. There wasn't enough time to build all of them, so Mustang No. 3 was scrapped, leaving just two super-rare pace cars.

Upon arrival at the track, one of the Mustangs died due to mechanical failure and was also sent packing. That left just one to be seen leading the Indy 500 drivers, which it did for 11 race seasons before retirement in 1974. The Mustangs needed to be able to safely pace the field at 140 mph so the stock 260 engines were replaced with de-tuned 289 lumps. The suspension was lowered and stiffened up and chrome marine handles and custom flag stanchions were added to carry a pair of checkered flags. After storage the car wasn't seen until 1990 when a Mustang Club member found out about the car and managed to buy it from the race track that owned it, making the lucky buyer first official owner of the car.

In 1991 a fully documented restoration began and the work was so good the car scored 100% in the MCA's Thoroughbred Class. The car was even given the proper single stage Ford Fleet White paint. The engine was completely redone to original specs too. The 298 was taken from the line of the motors being developed for the Ford GT 40 LeMans racer and so the small block V8 was rated at 450 horsepower. It's the only known factory-fitted Mustang power plant of its kind. A four-speed Toploader was also fitted to the car with a few Galaxie parts making up the rest of the drivetrain. The culmination is a car appraised by a museum curator at $1, 250,000, and we just found it listed on eBay for $1,099,000.

That's a big chunk of change, but there must be a collector out there willing to spend that much cash on a piece of true blue American history. Classic cars have been selling for crazy prices over the last few years, but few have a backstory like this Mustang. There are currently no offers in on eBay, but we wouldn't be shocked if this rare 'Stang ends up going for more than its asking price.