Pawn shops serve a vital function in our currently questionable economy - reliable reality TV fodder! Today's special ed Mustang has been moldering at American Jewelry and Loan for more than a year, but will its new lower price make you want to go for pawn broker?

While it appears from the 76% Nice Price vote that twenty six Benjamins for a is a steal, the meh vibe from the comments prove that Ford's cancellation of the mega fauna coupe was well founded. However, while that car may be hard pressed to find a new owner, today's candidate has been totally pwned.

While Greece may currently be facing a jobs crisis, for decades Lincoln kept Roman numerals…

Lee Iacocca - the cigar chomping, government loan so we can build the K-car advocating automotive executive who's older than dirt once created the Mustang. Well, more accurately, Iacocca envisioned a compact 4-seat car with a floor shift that would appeal to the burgeoning baby boomer market.

The Mustang name came from a series of prototype show cars - the first of which was a radical mid-engined two seater powered by Ford of Europe's compact V4. The second car more closely approximated both Iacocca's vision and the production edition, its long hood-short deck style looking vaguely European, and certainly like nothing coming out of Detroit at the time. The production car, following a year later, proves to have been one of the biggest debuts in automotive history, with prospective buyers stalking car carriers to the dealer and sealing the deal before the cars were even unloaded.

In 2009-1/2, fully forty five years after Iacocca's initial vision was turned into lucrative metal, a special , based on the new retro-respective edition was unveiled. Partnering with ADHD auto dealer Galpin Ford, and - creators of a jaw-dropping number of manufacturer show cars - Iacocca's special ed ‘Stang would turn out to be a radical take on the basic car's retro design, harkening back while looking forward.

And now, one of the 45 cars built is sitting at Detroit's American Jewelry and Loan, home of the reality TV show . Cable shows about pawn shops seem to be pretty popular these days and it's de rigueur that they be titled in a witty acknowledgement of the similarity in pronunciation between pawn and porn. That's why we get Pawn Stars and Hardcore Pawn. I'm shocked that the current fad of books and movies about the ambulatory deceased hasn't been tapped for a Pawn of the Dead show about people returning from the grave to reclaim their Fender Basses and cash and carry Skilsaws.

The three main stars of Hardcore Pawn - pawnstached Les, wild-eared Seth, and tan in a can spokesperson Ashley, sure know how to mix it up with the down on their luck. This program vies with that car repossession show and Bridezillas for featuring the boob tube's greatest cavalcade of non-telegenic individuals. They happened upon this claimed #11 of the 45 Iacocca Specials when the owner - who it seems won the car at a casino - brought it in for some quick cash. AJ&L gave him sixty grand for the car and then stuck it in the window with a $175K price tag. In detroit, that kind of cash will buy you a strip mall and getting someone whacked so you can imagine that it didn't seem like too great a deal for even as rare a Mustang as this.

The Silver Anniversary Iacocca Mustang at least looks the part, featuring vastly revamped and more aggressive styling attributed to designer Michael Leone. Bumpers have been tucked in like a lady boy's junk and the fastback has been made even faster. Underneath, Ford Racing catalog suspension pieces tighten and tone while inside diamond embroidered seats and a mirrored plaque between the center air vents let you know this isn't a plain jane pony.

This car sports the 320-bhp V8, a 400-pony-engendering supercharger option apparently not having its option box checked. That's too bad because as everyone knows, when it come to horsepower, more is better.

The question is, when it comes to unique Mustangs, is more - as in more money - also a good thing? As noted, this pawned-off pony originally had an asking price of $175K, but it's now being bargain basemented at a cool $135,000. Now, that kind of scratch will put you in range of another pretty special Ford - the GT, but that mid engine monster is almost common with over 4,000 built. This Iacocca edition is one of only 45. And it's not like the connection to the former Ford exec doesn't reek of provenance.

Still, with $135,000 you could stuff singles into strippers g-strings until your fingers were raw (What? Don't you judge me!), and after all this is at its heart just a Mustang. But what do you think, is this uber rare ‘Stang worth ponying up that much? Or, do you think it was the Pawn Shop that got pwned?

You decide!

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H/T to VolBrian for the hookup!

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