I had emailed the sellers about this car and my somewhat connection through my dad with the astronaut training program. They sent this note back. I thought it was very generous of his time to respond like this:
"DC, great story. Sounds like you actually read our ad. At 69 yes old, I have been in the auto business most my life & you can go thru your whole life & not be as fortunate as we are in purchasing Admiral Shepard’s car from the family. Fortunately it was in great 68k mile original condition & we painstakingly took many hours to get it to what you see today. We even put in a $7k lift just so we could give the underside the detail it deserved & as you can see it is in almost new condition.
We knew making $$$ selling would be easy but we decided to complicate things by raising the price & giving half the net proceeds to the ASF which The Admiral founded w the original Mercury 7 Astronauts.
Sounds like you had a very fortunate childhood w your dad @ Edwards. I would have loved to had the opportunity to meet The Admiral.
This has turned into a very political journey & we just got the support from the ASF. Next step is get support from NASA & then we will be able to advertise on both of their social media platforms. Our goal is to have the car sold by end of this year.
Please give my regards to you dad & stay tuned, its going to be a awesome journey.
Phil Collum
AutoQuest Jeeps
Home of the Astronaut Car
Waller TX 77484
832.473.7588
aqjeeps@gmail.com