Friends fulfilled man’s dream by restoring his Ford Mustang Mach 1 after ALS diagnosis.
- A group of pals restored a Mustang Mach 1 for their friend
- The owner had been diagnosed with ASL
- He dreamed of seeing the vintage car restored
Published on Sep 23, 2024 at 2:00 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on Sep 20, 2024 at 6:25 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
A group of friends spent a year restoring a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 for their pal, who was diagnosed with ALS.
Craig Reagan, from Texas in the US, bought the muscle car when he was just 17 years old and had held onto it ever since.
The car had been parked for the last 20 years, but Reagan had always dreamed of one day seeing it restored to its former glory.
Sadly, in 2016 he was diagnosed with ALS – a progressive condition condition that affects the brain and nerves.
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A group of friends joined together to restore the Mustang Mach 1
Following a high school reunion in 2022, a group of Reagan’s friends decided to restore the Mustang Mach 1.
“I thought, man, I have a shop, I can do this. It’ll be nice. It should be done,” pal Richard Watson told KHOU 11.
So Watson pulled together a bunch of friends and they decided to overhaul the car as a gift for Reagan but also to raise awareness for ALS and raise money to help Reagan’s family.
The group got together a few times a week for a year to work on the car at Watson’s auto shop Rusty Nuts Garage.
“We’re car guys. We all drove classic cars, well, then they weren’t so classic,” friend Brett McMath added.
The owner was delighted with the restoration
The team managed to get the car looking as good – if not better – than new and proudly presented it to a delighted Reagan and his wife, Nancy.
“I just want him to be happy,” Watson said. “None of us know how long we have on this earth and I just hope he’s happy with it.”
As you’ve probably guessed – Reagan was more than happy with it.
“Words can’t express the happiness that I feel,” he told the news outlet.
While his wife added that it ‘like a new car’ but ‘with all the memories’.
“It touches our heart and our family that we’ve had so much support and, you know, the continued friendships,” Nancy said.
If that’s not a big enough dose of the warm and fuzzies, then why not check out the moment a group of high schoolers launched a fundraiser to buy their favorite school janitor his dream car?
How sweet is that?
Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Across her career she's covered a wide variety of topics, including celebrity, cryptocurrency, politics, true crime and just about everything in between.
