1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 in Grabber Orange & 428 CJ Engine

Two guys running a small restoration shop in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho spent years hunting down original parts for a Mustang most people would have finished with reproductions. The payoff: a numbers-matching 1970 Mach 1 in Grabber Orange with a 428 Cobra Jet under its shaker hood, sold for ninety-nine thousand dollars at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale. Owner Jack Scanlon has had the car since 2010. What convinced two restorers a thousand miles from the usual parts networks that this build was worth doing right?

A Mustang doesn’t land on a Barrett-Jackson stage by accident, and it doesn’t sell for six figures without a reason nobody’s said out loud yet. This fastback spent years getting tracked down piece by piece, not by a collector chasing a payday, but by two guys running a small restoration shop out of Idaho who refused to fake a single part. Lou Costabile found the owner standing beside it on the Scottsdale floor, and the story involves a hunt for original components most people would have quietly swapped for reproductions. The hammer price tells you how that hunt ended. It doesn’t tell you why getting it exactly right mattered this much.

The Owner Who’s Had It Since 2010

Jack Scanlon has owned this 1970 Mach 1 since 2010, which by muscle car standards makes him a long-term steward rather than a flipper looking to cash in on a hot market. Over that time, Scanlon didn’t just maintain the car, he pursued a full restoration built around sourcing genuinely original parts rather than settling for the reproduction pieces that fill most restoration catalogs today. Lou Costabile’s walkaround captures Scanlon speaking with the kind of detail only an owner who’s spent over a decade with a car can offer, down to specific part numbers and supplier stories. That patience is part of why this particular Mach 1 stands out among the dozens of Mustangs that roll across the Barrett-Jackson stage every January in Scottsdale. It’s not a car assembled quickly for a sale; it’s a car built slowly, by someone who intended to actually own it.

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Platinum Unlimited: The Idaho Shop Behind the Build

The restoration work runs through Platinum Unlimited, a shop Scanlon operates together with Chris Ledgerwood out of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a location that doesn’t exactly scream “muscle car restoration hub” the way Southern California or the Rust Belt might. That geographic distance from the usual parts networks apparently didn’t slow them down. Scanlon and Ledgerwood extensively sourced components to make sure the car carried as many all-original parts as possible, rather than leaning on the reproduction industry that’s sprung up around cars this desirable. For two guys running a shop outside the traditional restoration corridors, getting a Mach 1 to this level of documented originality is a serious credential, and it’s a big part of why Lou Costabile’s cameras found this particular car worth featuring on the My Car Story channel rather than one of the hundreds of other Mustangs at the auction.

Grabber Orange: Ford’s Answer to the Color Wars

Grabber Orange arrived as part of Ford’s 1970 color lineup, a direct response to the increasingly loud paint options Chrysler and General Motors were throwing at the same buyers. It’s since become one of the defining Mustang colors of the era, instantly recognizable even to people who couldn’t name a single engine option. On this Mach 1, the shade does exactly what it was designed to do: it makes an already aggressive fastback silhouette look even more ready to move. One commenter mentioned that his father’s own 1970 Mach 1, sold decades ago for around five thousand dollars, was also finished in this exact color with a 351 Cleveland engine rather than the Cobra Jet big-block. That kind of recurring color choice across different owners and different engine combinations says something about how strongly Grabber Orange became tied to the Mach 1 nameplate specifically, more than almost any other Mustang trim of the period.

The 428 Cobra Jet and the Shaker That Proves It’s Real

Under that shaker hood scoop sits the 428 Cobra Jet, the engine option that turned the Mach 1 from a good-looking Mustang into a legitimate quarter-mile threat. The shaker itself, which pokes through a cutout in the hood and visibly vibrates with the engine at idle, was as much a functional ram-air intake as it was a piece of street theater, and it remains one of the most requested visual details on any restoration of this generation. Commenters on this video zeroed in on exactly that combination, with one calling the shaker scoop and 428 CJ pairing the thing that puts this Mustang “over the top” compared to lesser-optioned Mach 1s. Scanlon’s insistence on sourcing original parts extends to this driveline as well, which matters enormously to Cobra Jet buyers, since numbers-matching 428 CJ cars command a significant premium over Mach 1s that received engine swaps or non-original replacement blocks somewhere along the way.

Why 1970 Might Be the Best Mustang Year Ever Built

One of the most detailed comments on this video comes from a self-described lifelong Mustang restorer who argues that 1970 represents the platform’s high-water mark, the perfect blend between the smaller, tighter proportions of the 1964 to 1966 cars and the more aggressive stance Ford introduced with the 1967 and 1968 redesigns. According to that commenter, 1970 stands as Ford’s best year for the Mustang across several categories at once, not just styling. The 1970 model dropped the quad headlights of the 1969 model back to a single-headlight face with a more recessed grille, a change a lot of enthusiasts consider a styling correction after 1969’s busier front end. Whether or not you fully agree with ranking 1970 above every other model year, it’s a case that gets made constantly among Mustang people, and this particular Grabber Orange Mach 1 is a strong exhibit for the argument.

The Ninety-Nine Thousand Dollar Number

According to details tied to this specific auction listing, this 1970 Mach 1 sold for ninety-nine thousand dollars on the Barrett-Jackson block, a figure that puts it well above what a typical small-block Mach 1 brings and squarely in territory reserved for documented, numbers-matching Cobra Jet cars with a verifiable ownership and restoration history. That price reflects everything Scanlon and Ledgerwood put into the build: the original-parts sourcing, the Platinum Unlimited restoration work, and more than a decade of Scanlon’s ownership before it ever crossed the auction stage. It’s also a useful data point for anyone trying to gauge where the Mach 1 market sits right now, since prices for 428 Cobra Jet cars in desirable colors like Grabber Orange have continued climbing as fewer well-documented originals remain in circulation. Six-figure Mustangs used to be reserved for Boss 429s and Shelbys; Mach 1 Cobra Jets like this one are increasingly closing that gap.

A Son’s Story About His Father’s Mach 1

One of the more personal comments under this video comes from a viewer whose father had just reacquired a 1970 Mach 1 of his own, decades after selling an earlier one for around five thousand dollars. That earlier car, like Scanlon’s, wore Grabber Orange paint, though it carried a 351 Cleveland small-block rather than the 428 Cobra Jet under Scanlon’s shaker hood. Stories like this pop up constantly in the comment sections of Lou Costabile’s videos, and they underline something important about why cars like this one get restored so carefully in the first place: an entire generation of original buyers sold these Mustangs off cheap in the 1980s and 1990s, only to spend decades afterward trying to buy their way back into a car just like it. Scanlon and Ledgerwood’s painstaking, original-parts restoration is effectively doing that work in advance for the next owner.

Best Styled Mustang Ever? The Case for the Fastback

“Probably the absolute best styled Mustang ever” is how one commenter summed up this car, specifically pointing to the shaker hood scoop and 428 Cobra Jet as the details that push the styling over the top. It’s a bold claim in a lineup that includes the original 1965 fastback and the Boss 302 and Boss 429, but the 1970 Mach 1’s combination of Grabber Orange paint, black hood stripe, and functional shaker scoop gives it a visual presence that photographs and video walkarounds capture especially well. Lou Costabile’s format, which lingers on exterior details before getting into the mechanical story, plays directly to this car’s strengths. Whether or not the 1970 Mach 1 deserves the title of best-styled Mustang outright, it’s clear from the comment section that Scanlon and Ledgerwood’s restoration captured exactly the details that make the case for it, from the shaker scoop down to the correct Grabber Orange paint code.

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