• Standard Black Ink
• Black Ink Accent - Black lacquered top of steering wheel, gear shift knob
• Partial Performance White: white lacquered top of steering wheel, gear shift knob, and performance white leather seat inserts.

• Midnight Black

• Inca Gold
• Performance White - only available with partial white interior

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 The color samples that Jim Youngs showed us at Thunder Fever in early May 2005, convinced me to try for one.  I've kept this pretty much under wraps, trying not to make it too hard for us to get one since we waited until after orders closed before deciding to get one. The color is rare so finding one is almost as hard as finding a needle in a haystack. 

Next came the search,  first George started talking to our local dealers and discovered that no dealer in the Dallas Ft Worth area had even ordered one of that color,  at least not from the info he was able to glean from the different dealers. So we decided to have a dealer find one in some other part of the state or even out of state. George's inquiry at 3 different dealers turned up just one or two,  in Florida,  with the partial white interior,  none with white hardtop. Then someone posted about one in Nantucket that had a partial white interior. That's when we decided to get one of the dealers here to start looking more seriously for us. Partly because we didn't know what had to be done to get a car from out of state without paying more taxes than necessary.  We soon learned:

Well, this salesman that George wanted to work with said he couldn't find one but if we knew of one he'd get the ball rolling. We had told him about two at a dealer in Florida but "he couldn't find one just having a name of the dealer" (apparently didn't want to make the call to the dealership). That meant I had to do the internet searching (strike one). Our salesman's dealership also wanted $2200 shipping (strike 2). We could pick it up ourselves at that price with $1700 to spare (we should have quit dealing right then and moved on it ourselves, we would have got that one AND it was one of the first two built).

We had narrowed the search to partial white interior and IG hardtop since we already had a white hardtop. Two days later, with a list of about 4 cars and dealer names and towns, I gave them to the salesman, " not enough info" he said, he wanted ID numbers. (strike 3) I searched again and found the ID numbers and showed him which of the 4 cars we were most interested in; 3 were in Florida,  and only one of them had everything we were interested in (7-spoke wheels, SST, white interior, IG hardtop). Two days later he still had not called them to hold the car for us; wanted to give us time to "decide" (strike 4).  Every time I called him to see how he was doing, he said, "I'm working on it right now" (strike 5.  I give people lots of rope). Finally he says the paper work is ready and for us to come in and sign the papers. It's now day 4,  a Saturday.  We get a call from him as we're heading ffor the dealership to sign papers,  the deals off,  the car got sold at the originating dealer just hours before. Back to square 1. (and I'm a slow learner)

I do more searches and this time catalog ALL the inca golds I can find from Texas to Michigan to Pennsylvania and Texas to Florida and Georgia. I find 11 Inca Golds, most in Florida but still only 4 with the partial white interior. Even found a couple in the Seattle WA area but neither had the white interior. Joe M.  does some searches for me along the Atlantic seaboard and finds one in Annapolis, MD that matches what we want.  We think this is great, it's just 80 miles or so from Carlisle and we'll be in Carlisle and we could pick it up on our way home, on June 6. 

Timing was a big consideration as we needed to be home by June 8 due to a commitment that George had. However I still think our salesman can do the negotiations and give him a chance,  but the hitch is that all paperwork will have to be mailed to us as we're on the road to Carlisle by that time. (that's another story and strike #6)  Everything looks like it's going to be fine til we turn into the road our hotel in Carlisle is on. We get another call from our salesman.  The car in MD was damaged in the parking lot and can't be ready by June 6 for delivery. I'm bummed out,  still have options but decide we're going to do the next search on our own & deal directly with a dealer who has one on the lot. By then we knew that bringing a new car into the state would not be a problem as long as the selling dealer knew.  I knew of one in Florida that still fit the bill but by then we were starting to think that we didn't really need a 2nd hardtop to store so that changed  the choices to 2 cars, both in Florida.  We chose the closer one but we had to wait until after June 12 to pick it up.

We would have loved to sign papers on June 6,  the 3rd anniversary of when we picked up our 02 blue. Guess that was not meant to be.  We signed on June 14 in Florida at Bill Jarret Ford in Avon Park. The experience there was very pleasant even though we had a minor paperwork glitch.  It was taken care of quickly.

We called the selling dealer's parts department on Monday, June 13, on our way down, to order the bra.  Tthey had to order it and it came in that afternoon. We were still on the road as we only made it to Tallahassee the first night. We went straight to the dealer in Avon Park on Tuesday and spent a couple of hours getting the paperwork done. George installed the bra and then we headed for OlDave's home. He didn't tell us until we got there that his wife had to be checked into the hospital the night before. She's doing ok and is back home now but we did miss getting to meet her again.

The next day we headed home stopping in Pensicola for the night and arriving home in the early evening the next.  Our whole trip took us 4 days.  Our new T-bird started out at 11 miles and ended with 1320miles.  It has more miles in 2 days than one of our friend's '02 which they bought 4 years earlier.

Our next plans are to put it in the Yellow Rose Classic Ford show in August in Fort Worth.  It'll be in our club's display commemorating the 55-2005 Thunderbird.  The Yellow Rose's theme is the Thunderbird's 50th Anniversary this year so it's fitting to show the car with the early classics.

Update August 2005:  first in class at Yellow Rose Classic 2005.  We're trying to keep the mileage down so it's only getting out once a month now.

Update: 2017,  again at the Yellow Rose Classic in 2015, Best Thunderbird-Late model class.  (shows well with top down and partial white interior).  Sometime over the years we bought the white headrest wraps and white visor wraps.  Nice touch with the white interior and even with the white hardtop.  Also picked up a black hardtop which goes well with both our 02 and 05.
 

Mileage is at 85,000, so much for trying to keep the mileage down! and it still only gets out about once a month.  btw. It's twin resides about 50 miles away, bought by a friend late in 2015.
We traveled together early last year (2016) up to Oklahoma "for pie". His with white hardtop and ours with black soft top up. 

Some Stats on ours: It is one of 82 Inca Golds built and only 1 of 3 built with the particular combination we looked for: Inca Gold, no hardtop, white partial interior, SST, 7 spoke wheels, boot, and parking lights. It was ordered by the dealer on 3/30/2005, built 5/3/2005, at dealer  5/15/2005  and sold on 6/14/05 (stats provided thru Quickdraw)
 

Inca gold is a rare color.  Until production is over though, I can only speculate as to numbers.  Rumor has it that less than 100 will be built.

Above is our Inca gold on the left and the 02 Inspriation Yellow on the right.