Celebrate National Mustang Day with this delicious 1966 Ford 289 FIA race car

From the GT to the GT350, there’s a lot to love about the Mustang—especially today, National Mustang Day—and more muscle is to come when the GT500 finally lands for 2020. Since we’re all about Mustangs of any vintage, we’ve been unable to avert our eyes from this consummately restored 1966 Ford Mustang 289 Coupé FIA. It’s red, white, and blue; stripped out as a race car should be; and positively aching to be spanked around a track.

According to RM Sotheby’s, which will offer the Ford Mustang 289 race car in its upcoming Monaco sale, the pony car was restored by a German racing team in the early 2000s in preparation for race duty between 2004 and 2007. The team customized the Mustang to 1965 FIA racing specification and ran it in the Historic European Touring Car Championship (HETCC) during that time, and it reportedly escaped unscathed and unmarred from accident damage.

After a reasonably successful racing career, where it won two FIA rallies and came second in its class in 2005 and 2006 in the HETCC, it was sold in 2007 and benefitted from subsequent maintenance work and “freshening.” RM Sotheby’s says that since that time the car has been subjected to just one hour in testing and hasn’t spent a lick of time in a race.

More specific details on the car are scarce, but from the images we can tell the interior has been fully outfitted for racing with custom gauges and switchgear. There isn’t much more interior to speak of outside of a Recaro racing seat and a safety cage. We did spot a five-speed shift knob, but according to the car’s FIA passport, it uses a four-speed transmission.

Tune in to the Monaco auction on May 12 to see what some lucky owner is willing to pony up for this sweet Mustang racer.