Jim Kennedy’s Car Collection

I had a good friend named Bob who wrote mystery novels. His most popular books featured a fictional Boston-based private investigator. In the television series based upon that character, the private eye drove a dark green 1965 or 1966 Mustang Fastback (the distinctive markings identifying the year were intentionally removed by the production), a sly nod to the more famous 1968 version piloted by Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt. Bob did not particularly care for the television series (although he appreciated the royalty checks they produced); I, however, enjoyed the show immensely, especially the car. I promised myself if I ever stumbled upon a pristine example of the breed, I would seriously consider buying it. Of course, I knew that would likely never happen. Until it did. I pondered the opportunity for several agonizing seconds before committing to the purchase. I just wish Bob were still around to see it.

 

Twenty years before Spenser: For Hire debuted on the ABC Network, a young Detroit native apparently also loved the newly introduced Mustang. The day after his 21st birthday, he wrote a check for $2,500 to the Jerry Bielfield Ford dealership in Detroit, Michigan, and surrendered his 1961 Ford Starliner Club Victoria for $600 credit toward the purchase of a new 1965 Ivy Green 2+2 Mustang Fastback; he owed $86.31 at delivery of the car two days later. His new ride featured several options, including a 4-Valve V-8 engine, GT package, four-speed transmission, AM Radio, electric wiper and washer, wheel covers with knock off hub caps, and white side-wall tires. The dealer also installed a driver’s side outside mirror.

 

Jerome “Jerry” Bielfield, a New York native and University of Michigan graduate, began his professional career running a Firestone tire distributorship with his father and brother. After Army Air Corps service in World War II, he opened Jerry Bielfield Co. with his brother, Bud, in Detroit, in 1949. He was active in civic affairs, especially the Hospice of Michigan, Jewish Family Services, and the Jewish Fund. He was also a former chairman of the Detroit Auto Show and co-founded the show’s Charity Preview. After 40 years as a Ford dealer, Mr. Bielfield sold his business and retired in 1989; the dealership is now known as Jorgenson Ford and occupies the same location on Michigan Avenue. Jerry Bielfield died in 2001, at age 88. 

 

The young purchaser of the Mustang so loved his Fastback he kept it for 44 years. A few years after his purchase, he used the car as collateral when he decided to forgo his pursuit of a Master’s Degree in counseling in order to pursue his passion as an artist and to open an artist’s gallery in the Detroit suburbs. He later taught art to high school students and operated an alpaca farm with his wife. A graduate of Catholic schools, he was also actively involved in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic Men’s charitable organization.

 

In the fall of 2009, as the country struggled to recover from the Great Recession, the original owner offered the Mustang for sale. The car then enjoyed a full frame-off restoration and was delivered to a new owner in the western suburbs of Chicago. That owner traded the vehicle with a local Chevrolet dealer in the late summer of 2018. A year later, while visiting a niece in the area, I spotted what I had thought was an impossible dream in the dealership’s showroom window, and stopped to inquire. A month later, the Fastback called California “home.”

 

Alas, the many admirable aspects of the Mustang do not include power steering. As a result, whenever I struggle to make a left-hand turn from a full stop, I have difficulty imagining this car pursuing fictional thieves and mobsters and murderers through the narrow streets of Beantown. But whenever I punch the clutch and shift to a higher gear, I hear echoes of the jazz-infused riffs from the theme song of an underappreciated 1980s television drama. My buddy Bob would be baffled.