Prefering to work on one restoration at a time, it took him about seven years. Al found his Mach 1 had a nice rust-free body. You'd expect virgin metal in Arizona, but actually this car was bought new in New York and came to Phoenix two years later. Its northern heritage explains the lack of air conditioning. Mileage was just 63,000, but the interior was in poor condition.
Extreme heat ruins dashes and upholstery and things like rubber seals.
Nowak did as much of the work as possible, but farmed out the Cobra Jet engine work and the re-spray of the original Indian Fire enamel paint. Though this kind of audio has gone the way of the Dodo in the music world, the system remains intact, complete with an eight-track cartridge tape to play at car shows. After finishing a long-term, intensive restoration, Al Nowak mostly keeps his Saturday Night Special Mach 1 at home in the garage, only bringing it out for the occasional Saturday night cruise. Fortunately, he's also starting to bring it to the big Mustang shows and everybody's got to be happy about that. We sure are.