Local pair drive away as lottery winners
When Robert Dixon was dating the woman who later would become his wife, he drove a lime-green 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1. Now he is giving her a brand new “legend lime” Mustang convertible.
Dixon, 46, of Airway Heights, won the car in the Washington Lottery’s Mustang Money Second Chance bonus game drawing. In the game, players enter non-winning Scratch tickets for a chance to win a car.
Dixon and his wife, Jacki Dixon, picked up their 2005 V-6 convertible Monday at the Wendle Ford showroom, 4727 N. Division.
It was the first Mustang to be given away in the drawing statewide, said lottery spokeswoman Jacque Coe.
“She always wanted a convertible,” Robert Dixon said in a telephone interview. “I got an automatic so she could drive it.”
He joked that if his wife were to win in another drawing, she would let him get a manual transmission.
Dixon said he sold his original Mustang to help Jacki’s family move to Spokane from Garfield, Wash., in the early 1980s. The couple were married in 1983.
“It reminds me a lot of it – it’s almost the same color,” Jacki Dixon said.
She said she never had driven a convertible before.
“I’m going to drive one today,” she said, adding that she was still in shock about the win. She also said she eventually might go on a road trip in her new car.
The non-winning ticket turned into a winner in the July 13 drawing. Robert Dixon said that when he came home about three weeks ago and one of his sons said the lottery office had called, his first response was, “Yeah, right.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I still can’t believe it.”
Calling it “a pretty cool car,” Jeremy Polk, the Wendle Ford salesman who helped Dixon pick out his dream car, said this year’s model has been completely redesigned and the car has some of the latest features.
Polk said the winners get a great deal because the car’s sales tax and licensing fee and the federal income tax all are covered.
“The customer walks away not owing a dime,” he said.
There are four more chances to drive away in new cars. Drawings are scheduled Wednesday, Sept. 14, Oct. 12 and Nov. 9.