The time was October 2012, the place was Sellersville,

Pennsylvania. I had just purchased my first Ford Mustang after

a long string of less than remarkable foreign imports. My wife

had recently purchased her second Mustang and was from a

“Ford Family”  where any car without the blue oval was not

welcome. She quickly got me immersed into the car show

scene which prompted my first Mustang, a 2010 Torch Red GT

Premium. This car was unlike any I had previously owned; bright

red interior, flashy from front to back, with a 310 HP V8 engine,

quite a step up from the 200 HP Ford Taurus  I had previously

been rolling in.  As Mustang owners, we felt it important to go

the Carlisle Ford Nationals in the summer of 2012 and see what the largest Ford event in the area was like. The weather was rainy and the event  was crowded. I saw the huge swap meet, which was great if I had an old LX or classic sitting in the garage to be worked on. Parts for newer cars were being hawked by the vendors and while prices were good, I was not planning on dropping a few grand on anything substantial.

 

Walking the show field, I got to see a wide assortment of beautiful cars; Fairlanes, Falcons, early classics, the occasional GT and of course Mustangs.  Mustangs as far as the eye could see…. There were thousands. In the middle of the sea of Mustangs, one thing caught my eye—a field of Yellow. It looked like the sun blazing in the midday sky, beckoning for all to gaze upon the splendor.  Walking through the field I thought to myself, “Why isn’t there a sea of Red, or any other color at that?  What makes yellow so special?” Returning home from that event, I began my research; learning about the Yellow Mustang Registry and their 15 year history. I was enthralled with the  idea of the camaraderie based on color and looked to join the Red Mustang Registry. More research on the web revealed three red only groups. Looking at the sites it was evident that two of them were dead and the other one had 170 members over a five year span. The page was dead and there was no where else to look.

 

Now I am not a person who has a ton of free time, but I really wanted a group to join. I found my local car club, which I had joined in October, 2012 to be loosely controlled, with a lot of drama and stress; not something I wanted to be a part of. I actually volunteered to help the group grow and take an active role, but the president did not take me up on the offer.

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This made me realize that if I wanted a group to join that would fit my needs, I would need to create it. I attempted to contact the owner of the website using Red Mustang Registry as the web address, but never got a response. It was obvious I would need to start from scratch and RMR was born. Based on the simple idea of a family friendly page, without the half naked women and drama, devoted to the people who drive red Mustangs only. Knowing what I wanted to call the group all I needed to do was get started—buy and register a domain, design a website, choose a logo, create a Facebook page, and look for members. It only took a couple of weeks to really launch the early  phase of the group. My wife and I would talk to all the red owners we would meet at shows and see if they were interested in joining. I knew I did not want to charge anything for people to join, since we were not a club. By August of 2012 we had 150 members and 9 of us attended the American Muscle show together as the first gathering of members.

 

Over the next 5 years a lot about RMR would change. First the logo—the original I purchased from the artist with the rights to limited use, and I knew it was not going to be sufficient for the needs. I also wanted a logo that would reflect the association of the horse and the automotive purpose of the group. I realized that I wanted the mane to be a tire tread, something I had never seen before. With the help of an artistic friend I was able to have my idea put on paper. It has since been officially registered as a trademark with the USPTO and has been seen in over 30 countries around the globe.

 

RMR has grown to over  8000 “registered” cars.  Not every member is active and quite a few have sold, wrecked, or traded their Mustangs and some have just left because the group is not for them.  We started as a small “group” and grew into a very large “network”.  That network, which has about 2000 devoted and active members is too spread out to function as a  “group” and while I want to have everyone feel warm and fuzzy, there is a limited to what can be accomplished through social media. RMR needed more. We have had several events with larger group turnout (The current record is 153 members at the 2016 Mustang Memories Show) and a growing feeling of family made obvious that some members wanted more.   I have always believed one thing about RMR, “You get out of it what you put into it”. We were founded as a "Registry" but we function to the needs of the members.  Some will only be registrants, others see us as a "group" or a "club" and many even see us as a "family". We are not the perfect match for everyone.  We don’t allow a lot of the ‘traditional” (many would replace that word with misogynistic) beliefs.  Our core belief we always be the same. It does not matter if your are male or female, young or old, drive a 4,6 or 8 cylinder model.  1964 to Present— All that matters is that it’s RED.