In April 1961, Bill McCubbin was about to be a new Ford dealer in Madison, Indiana.
An ad from The Madison Courier promoted McCubbin Ford’s grand opening that month, with drawings of the ’61 Ford Falcon and Galaxie and a message that McCubbin “would personally like to show you the most maintenance-free Ford in history.”
More than six decades later, McCubbin, at 102, is no longer selling Fords in southeastern Indiana, but he hasn’t lost his interest in the Dearborn automaker’s cars.
Last month, McCubbin got a special tour of Ford Motor Co.’s Heritage Fleet at the company’s world headquarters. The fleet isn’t open to the public, although it is being made available to a limited number of outside groups and clubs with connections to Ford vehicles. It was created, as the Free Press previously reported, to inspire the company’s employees. (The Free Press is a part of the USA TODAY Network.)
The fleet includes a host of rarities, such as the 10 millionth Ford Mustang produced (built at the Flat Rock Assembly plant) and the 1999 Ford Thunderbird Concept as well as various iterations of the company’s famed GT supercars.
Ford’s Heritage brand manager, Ted Ryan, was contacted and the trip arranged after McCubbin’s daughter, Nancy Starr, who lives in Atlanta, saw a CBS News report on the fleet. The trip was to include a visit to Michigan Central Station, the mammoth rehabilitation project of Detroit’s once-ruined iconic train station engineered by Ford.
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McCubbin was at the headquarters Monday, July 21, with his family, including son, Kevin McCubbin. Kevin eventually took over the dealership, selling it, according to madisoncourier.com, in 2021.
Bill McCubbin, who sported a white ballcap with a blue Ford oval logo while speaking with a Free Press reporter after his tour, recalled a fortunate connection early in his time as a dealer, getting shown a Mustang concept by Lee Iacocca when McCubbin was in the Detroit area for a meeting and later spending an afternoon with the legendary Ford executive at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
“That was the greatest investment I ever made because I got every Mustang I ever asked for,” he said, noting that Mustangs were hard to get in 1964 and ’65.
McCubbin, who’d sold used cars beginning in 1949, according to his son, and later worked as a sales manager at a dealership in Louisville, Kentucky, acquired his store in an unexpected turn. He’d traveled with someone who’d intended to buy the dealership in Madison, but that fell through and he was later offered financing to buy it.
Some of his favorite personal cars from the past included a 1964 Lincoln convertible and a 1957 Thunderbird, which he sold for a nice profit. McCubbin offered that the Lincoln was a nice specimen despite a few issues, and he “loved Thunderbirds.”
Of the vehicles in the fleet he saw this week, he said he was most impressed with the various concept cars.
McCubbin said he appreciates how cars have evolved, but he’s not a fan of touch-screen controls, including in his 2023 Lincoln Corsair.
“I like everything about the cars today, but they have transferred too much to the screen,” he said.
McCubbin, a Navy veteran who drove an infantry landing barge during five invasions in the Pacific during World War II, worked at the Willow Run bomber plant in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, before he joined the service, the Free Press was told.
He used a wheelchair during his tour, but he stays active on his feet, too. He said he usually walks a mile a day on a treadmill, and he offered that he walked a mile and a half this past weekend.
McCubbin noted proudly that he also doesn’t take any medicine, not even baby aspirin.
“The doctor says, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep doing it.’ ”
Some of that includes never being a heavy eater and doing “gym work” for 30 years. He has mostly stayed away from butter, too.
“Never was a butter guy, except on my mother’s and my wife’s apple pie. Always put a lot of butter on that sometimes,” he said.
As the time available for the interview with the Free Press wound down, McCubbin didn’t miss a beat.
“I think we’re running out of time or somebody’s looking for watches over there,” he said of a few people waiting to talk to him nearby.
Justin Wan contributed to this report. Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.

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