Retired car salesman Harry Phillips still isn't certain how the first Ford Mustang ever produced wound up at a dealership in St. John's, N.L.

But he knows the customer who bought the car: an Eastern Provincial Airways pilot named Capt. Stanley Tucker, from Gander, N.L. Of course, Phillips also knows how Tucker managed to get his hands on the vehicle. After all, Phillips was the one who sold it to him.

It was Phillips's first year on the job as a salesman at the George Parsons' Ford dealership in St. John's.

At the time, the dealership didn't know that they had received the first production model Mustang.

"The serial number 01 really didn't mean too much to us at the time," Phillips said. "We put it sort of on the road and on our parking lot so everybody could see it driving."

Though the plates say 1965, the first Mustang ever built drove off the lot in 1964. (Sanjay Maru/CBC)

Tucker saw the vehicle and had to have it. But the dealership wasn't technically allowed to sell it for another week or so.

"I told him, 'Come in, give us a deposit on it, we'll hold it, but you can't drive it, you can't take it out, and it's gonna be there in the showroom,'" said Phillips. "Every day, for seven or eight days, he used to come into the showroom, look around, walk around, and make sure nothing happened to it."

When Tucker finally got his hands on the car, it was the last time Phillips ever saw the Mustang with the 5F08F100001 serial number again — until Friday, when he visited the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.

A reunion 55 years in the making

Stephanie Mealey said she first came up with the idea to reunite her grandfather with the first-built Mustang he sold earlier this year.

Stephanie Mealey, granddaughter of Harry Phillips, helped coordinate the 'Send Harry to Henry' campaign, which resulted in her grandfather visiting the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. (Sanjay Maru/CBC)

With the help of a friend, she developed a social media campaign called Send Harry to Henry to raise awareness about her grandfather's desire to see the car.

It worked. Businesses stepped up to raise money to get Phillips to Dearborn.

"I didn't ever think that it would actually come to fruition," Mealey said. "I never thought this day would happen."

Automotive ancient history

The story of how Ford Motors came to possess the 5F08F100001 Mustang is its own long and winding journey.

According to Phillips, a few months after Tucker purchased the vehicle, representatives from Ford came to St. John's to ask the George Parsons dealership for the car.

"We said, 'Well, you know, we don't know about that. Talk to the owner,'" Phillips explained.

Tucker, however, wasn't interested in selling his car. It took almost a year for Ford to convince the airline pilot to let go of his precious Mustang.

The inside of the first Ford Mustang ever manufactured. (Sanjay Maru/CBC)

"He wouldn't let it go for nothing," said Phillips. "But by the next year, they talked him into it … They made a deal with him and sold him the 1966 with, I think, everything that you can put on your car."

Tucker's new Mustang was a special order. Phillips said he heard Ford even installed a television set in the vehicle.

On March 2, 1966, he received Mustang No. 1,000,001 — the millionth Mustang ever produced.

'I really can't believe I'm looking at it'

When the 85-year-old Phillips got to Michigan and finally laid eyes on the 5F08F100001 Mustang, he said he couldn't believe it was happening. He said it "brought back a lot of memories."

"Here it is, still on the go," he said. "It's just the way I saw it. Like a new car."

The Mustang still bears its original license plate. (Sanjay Maru/CBC)

And while Phillips still isn't certain about how Model 5F08F100001 made its way to St. John's, N.L., he knows exactly how he found his way back to the car in Dearborn.

"I've got to thank my granddaughter, who's really responsible," he said. "She's the one who got me here."