April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. —Ed.

It was too early for the phone to ring. One of my workers was on the line, out of breath, saying that the Mustang was gone. Stolen!  

I had left my beloved ’65 Mustang GT convertible in the fenced, locked yard at my office. The thieves managed to cut multiple padlocks, moved a 15-foot truck, and got away with my baby.

When I was a teenager growing up in Mexico, I saw the French movie A Man and a Woman and fell in love—with the ’65 Mustang convertible. I told my mom, “I’m going to have that car one day.” Years later, I graduated from college in the U.S. and surprised my mom by showing off El Poni, my Rangoon Red ’65 Mustang GT convertible. She cried.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and El Poni was on blocks in the garage, with vermin living comfortably in the engine compartment. My wife told me I needed to fix it or sell it. I couldn’t part with the car, so I put in the time and money to build it into a show piece. I was rewarded with the biggest surprise of my life when I won the Mayor’s Trophy at the 2019 La Jolla Concours d’Elegance.

A few months later, we were in the middle of the Covid pandemic, and El Poni was gone. I was heartbroken, and so were my friends and family. My wife and I drove around neighborhoods in hopes of finding the car, to no avail. We reported the theft but heard nothing.

Then, a miracle. A year and a half after the theft, I found a listing for a red ’65 Mustang GT convertible on eBay. I stared at the photos and saw that the rear window was glass instead of vinyl. Then I saw the custom armrest. Then the gold-painted air filter painted gold. I knew it was mine.

Amazingly, the people selling on eBay listed their city and included a photo of the car taken in front of their condo. A detective from the Chino Police Department, who happened to own a ’66 Mustang convertible, located the car with the assistance of the California Highway Patrol. The VIN plate on the driver’s side had been punched out. To verify the VIN, the passenger-side fender—held on by 18 bolts—would have to be removed. The detective had a better idea: He asked if there was something specific that would identify the car as mine. I remembered I’d put a red plastic straw in the windshield washer bag to hold it up. And when the detective opened the hood, he exclaimed “Yep, it’s your car! Come and get it.”

I went to church and lit a candle, so grateful to have this beloved car once again.

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The post Red Straw to the Rescue! Mustang GT Stolen and Recovered appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If the conniving monster who stole the custom Nissan Z tricked out by Slim Jim is reading this, we have but one thing to say:

You’re a real jerky.

Slim Jim, the American brand known for slender-tubed protein snacks (bicker amongst yourselves as to the validity of using “meat” as a descriptor), finds itself the victim of a daring automotive heist. Someone has absconded with their heavily-customized Nissan Z promotional vehicle, dubbed “FastMeat.” The car was on a road trip as part of a partnership between Slim Jim and the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) league, having recently made stops in Chicago and Los Angeles. It was stolen while out in California.

There’s an active police investigation underway, presumably helmed by officers who know the value of staving off hunger while on the job. More importantly, perhaps, is the social media movement that’s sprung up under the hashtag #FindFastMeat. Started by Slim Jim, it’s a plea to its most loyal fanbase, who calls themselves the Long Boi Gang, to help find the car. (This author turns 30 in three weeks; is this what it’s like to realize you’re officially out of touch with the youths?)

if #FASTMEAT is going to be a star i think it deserves an intro track 

whose got me(at)? #SurvivorSeries https://t.co/j68xXNQ6WD

— Slim Jim MEATA (@SlimJim) November 26, 2023

“We knew we had something special with our custom car, but had no idea it would be in such demand that someone would steal it,” said Ashley Spade, VP and General Manager, Snacks at Conagra Brands (Slim Jim’s parent company). Ravenous hunger will make a person do wild things—including, now, stealing a food-themed car.

But what a custom car it is. FastMeat boasts fiery branded orange and yellow wrap and equally flashy LED undercarriage lighting, ensuring this thing turns heads (and possibly stomachs?) everywhere it goes. Inside, a custom yellow interior features a special Slim Jim holder, a one-of-a-kind Slim Jim Dispenser in the glove box, and plenty of hidden Easter eggs for the Long Boi Gang (nope, still don’t get it) to appreciate.

If you have any tips about FastMeat’s whereabouts, or if you happen to spot this vivacious sports car out and about, please contact the Los Angeles Police Department using this link.

Let’s hope they’re able to locate FastMeat before someone has to go before the charcuterie board and explain themselves.

Keep that head on a swivel, Oscar Meyer; the Weinermobile might be next.

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With a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, a University of Michigan (U.M.) research team is set to begin large-scale testing of Battery Sleuth, a vehicle security system that can protect against “sophisticated wireless hacking, old-school jimmying, and everything in between.”

It’s so simple, you wonder why no one has thought of it before.

Using the auxiliary power outlet, known to those of a certain age as the cigarette lighter, Battery Sleuth bypasses both the wireless communication that key fobs depend on and the standardized onboard communication network that’s used in today’s vehicles. Instead, it authenticates drivers by measuring voltage fluctuations in a vehicle’s electrical system. Drivers interact with it through a keypad device plugged into the auxiliary power outlet.

“The great thing about the power outlet is its simplicity—it’s just a wire connected to the battery, so there’s nothing to hack,” said Kang Shin, the Kevin and Nancy O’Connor Professor of Computer Science at U.M. and lead researcher on the project. “And creating voltage fluctuations with components like windshield wipers or door locks is even simpler.”

Battery Sleuth delivers a predetermined series of voltage fluctuations—a sort of “voltage fingerprint,” the school says—to the car’s electrical system when the driver enters a numerical code into the keypad device. A receiver then recognizes this fingerprint and enables the vehicle to start. Drivers can also deliver the voltage fluctuation manually using auxiliary functions that draw battery power. They might perform some combination of flicking the windshield wipers, turn signal, or headlights on and off, or locking and unlocking the doors.

Installed between a vehicle’s battery and the car’s electrical system, Battery Sleuth’s default mode allows the battery to deliver enough current to power systems like electronics and lights, but not enough to power the vehicle’s starter. Only when it detects the pre-set series of voltage fluctuations in the vehicle’s electrical system does it turn up the juice, allowing the battery’s full power through to the starter.

“The idea of measuring fluctuations in a car’s electrical system seems simple, but designing one device that can do it accurately on thousands of different vehicle models in varying environmental conditions gets quite complicated,” said Liang He, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Colorado, Denver and a researcher on the project. “We’re working to design a system that’s smart enough to measure the parameters of the vehicle it’s installed on and then customize itself to work effectively on that vehicle.”

The system is designed to work as either an add-on to existing vehicles or a permanently installed component on new vehicles. “Vehicle theft costs drivers and insurance companies more than $4 billion each year in the United States alone, and that’s partly because today’s vehicles use a hodge-podge of computer systems that were never designed to work together,” Shin said. “Each new layer of technology introduces new security vulnerabilities, and rather than try to patch each one, we’ve developed a system that works completely independently.”

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