Category: Ford Mustang

TOUR: Jeff Catlin’s MUSTANG Collection!! 

TOUR: Jeff Catlin’s MUSTANG Collection!! 

Advertisements

Text from Timeless Muscle Magazine story here

We love watching clips of personal car collections, barn finds, project car rescues and those that show personalities buying and flipping cars. Some of those most famous for doing so are Richard Rawlings, Dennis Collins and their friend, Trans Am guru, Dave Hall of Restore a Muscle Car.

Today, we ran across this latest video from Dennis Collins, who is most known for his expertise in vintage and modern Jeep vehicles, but naturally, is pretty well-versed in just about everything from classic muscle cars and modern exotic sports cars. Usually, Dennis focuses more on buying and flipping cars, or gives us a tour of whatever he currently has in his shop at the moment. But every now and then, he takes us on a trip to visit someone’s private car collection, and that’s just what he’s done here

A personal friend of his, Jeff Catlin, has been buying, selling, restoring and modifying Mustangs from the first-generation, to the more modern SN95 cars of the ’90s. He talks us through some of the cars he’s currently working on, tells us a bit about his background and gives us a closer look at some of the jewels in his collection.

What we see, is a legit Salon Fox Body from 1987, a super clean 6-shooter first get, a pair of mild pro-touring first-gens and a former Arizona state trooper Fox Body notch. There’s also a black Fox coupe with some large-diameter rollers on it, and a aftermarket chassis sitting inside Jeff’s shop, with some impressive hardware attached to it.

We could tell you more, but we’ll let Dennis’ video fill in all of the details.

The Fox-body Ford Mustang is the best blank canvas pony car | Buyer’s Guide – @Hagerty

Advertisements

Hagerty’s Editor-at-Large Sam Smith takes a look at the Fox-body Ford Mustang and offers a general overview of the highly affordable but highly variable third-generation pony car. With an easy-to-modify structure, Sam not only covers the pluses and minuses of the Mustang’s massive aftermarket, but also the nuances of owning, buying, and maintaining this iconic classic.

Episode chapters:

From street racing to 11-second timeslips: Dad’s Shelby G.T. 500 kept racing after he sold it – Matt Litwin @Hemmings

Advertisements
Bride-to-be mom alongside dad’s 1968 Shelby G.T. 500 shortly after its purchase. Photo courtesy of Ray Litwin.

Twenty-four months. That’s essentially the duration my father shopped for, negotiated the purchase of, and owned his brand-new 1968 Shelby G.T. 500. On paper, the last 12 months of that timeframe doesn’t seem like one could accumulate enough enjoyment out of a dream car he financed for close to $5,000, yet he did. As discussed previously, once in his possession, the Shelby was enhanced with an aftermarket carburetor, was used as a daily commuter, burned through untold tanks of Sunoco 260 with alarming regularity, and, as I recently learned, was street raced to a perfect 3-0 record.

Dad drove his year-old Shelby G.T. 500 to Simon Ford, where it was traded in for a special-ordered 1969 Ford LTD loaded with every option, save for a 429-cu.in. engine. The G.T. 500 then appeared in this ad listing it for sale. In today’s money, that $4,195 asking price equates to $30,780.

It also was a hot ride—we’re talking engine heat—on top of already looking more and more like an impractical car for a young couple who were about to marry and buy their first house. It was enough to prompt Dad to trade the car in for something completely different: a 1969 Ford LTD Brougham. It was a car he and my mom owned for four years, which then started an endless buy/sell phase of car ownership that has been a part of the family legacy. Despite the variety of steeds, though, the one consistent question has always been, “Whatever happened to the Shelby?”

Almost immediately after the Shelby appeared in a local newspaper ad, Lilyan McGary—a resident of nearby Fitchville, Connecticut—arrived at Simon Ford to purchase the high-performance car for her son; according to lore, it was to be his first car. Over the course of the next several months, my dad remembered seeing the new owner(s) scooting along the area roads in the Shelby on several occasions before it slipped into the realm of former-car obscurity. How often it was driven, or the nature of its use when in the hands of the McGary family, is anyone’s guess to this day. Records make it clear, however, that on April 5, 1973, the G.T. 500 was purchased by nearby Canterbury resident Cliff Williams.

Read on

A once-lost Boss 302 with a rare induction system resurfaces 30 years later – Hemmings

Advertisements

We can assure you of several things relating to Mark Hovander’s 1970 Boss 302 Mustang. One, it has never been sold at an auction. Two, it isn’t the most pristine Boss 302 you’ve ever seen. Three, it has a Ford over-the-counter induction system you may not have seen, and four, it has a remarkable story far beyond its stature as a retail example of Ford’s SCCA Trans-Am-winning homologation effort. Let’s dig in.

When Mark was but a teenager in the late 1970s, he was captivated by Ford Mustangs. When he was 16, his first car was a nice 1965 coupe powered by a pedestrian 289. Mark soon connected with fellow sophomore classmate Pat Gillen, whose older brothers Mike and Ed already owned several high-performance Mustangs, including Boss 302s, a Boss 429, and a Shelby G.T. 500. Through the Gillen brothers, Mark was quickly enamored by these topflight steeds, and set his sights on upgrading from his ’65 as soon as possible. Pat was of the same mind, and the two soon landed summer jobs on an Alaska-bound fishing boat. As far as high school jobs went for kids living in Seattle, these were among the best-paying gigs imaginable—the cost of admission being endless hard work on a boat for three months straight. Says Mark about those days, “One financial benefit of working on a boat in Alaska was that there was no limit to the hours you might have to work per day, and no place to spend the money since we were almost always at sea.”

While looking much like a stock Cross Boss engine might have appeared, had the factory done such a thing, the V-8 beneath has been warmed up with a custom Steve Long camshaft and forged Diamond pistons. Inline Autolite carbs came in two configurations: 875 and 1,425 cfm. The 875-cfm carb was intended for road racing and the 1,425 for “unlimited racing classes such as Formula A and modified drag.” Mark’s carb is an 875, with custom fuel lines bent up by Wicked Fabrication. An initial dyno test indicated that at a conservative 5,500 rpm, Mark’s Cross Boss was up on the stock induction by 25 horsepower, but down on torque by 10 lb-ft.

Read on

Buyer’s Guide: The plentiful, affordable, 5.0-powered 1987-93 Ford Mustang – Mike McNessor @Hemmings

Advertisements

A new Mustang GT hit the ground galloping in 1982 and Ford shouted its return with the slogan: “The Boss is Back!” Hitching the Boss legend to this new pony made good marketing sense, but the Fox was no retro-themed throwback. It would go on to inspire a new generation of enthusiasts and launch dedicated magazines and websites, as well as become a darling of the aftermarket.

Old-school, American rear-drive performance mounted a comeback in the 1980s, ushered in by cars like the Buick Grand National, the Chevrolet Monte Carlos SS, and the Camaro IROC-Z. But, when new, these vehicles were priced out of reach of many young people on entry-level salaries. Also, the GM contingent offered manual transmissions only as exceptions rather than the rule.

Not so the 5.0. Ford priced the Mustang GT affordably and, beginning in 1983, offered a real-deal Borg-Warner T-5 fives-peed manual transmission. For ’86, Ford dumped the Holley carburetor and made multiport fuel injection plus a roller camshaft standard—exotic parts for a low-dollar production car back then.

While Chevrolet charged a premium for all the good stuff, Ford lowered the price by offering the el-cheapo LX with a 5.0 powertrain. Not only was it less expensive, but the notch-window body style, exclusive to the LX line, was lighter than the hatchback/convertible GT.

Read on

Legend of the Green Hornet – BARRETT-JACKSON

Advertisements
The restoration of a lifetime! The incredible story of how Barrett-Jackson CEO and Chairman Craig Jackson and an elite team of automotive restoration specialists set out to restore the rarest and most desirable Shelby Mustang of all time, the 1968 EXP 500 Green Hornet.

The Green Hornet’s provenance of being a double prototype puts it into a unique category and represents a rolling history of what was happening within Ford and Shelby American in the heyday of the American muscle car era. The performance DNA of all modern Mustangs and Shelbys leads back to this very car, making this 1968 Ford Mustang Notchback Coupe – as Carroll Shelby once said – “the one and only Green Hornet.”

More here at Barrett Jackson

The Hunt for Little Red – BARRETT-JACKSON

Advertisements

It was assumed lost for over 50 years, another prototype destined for the crusher. Except this one wasn’t. Witness the incredible story of Barrett-Jackson CEO and Chairman Craig Jackson’s personal quest to find and restore the mythical father of the Mustang California Special, the 1967 Shelby GT500 Prototype (EXP 500) known as “Little Red.” Discovered sitting in a Texas field, Little Red was Carroll Shelby’s way of getting the better of Ferrari’s road cars and the first of many incredible innovations. Get ready for the journey – exploring the restoration for one of the rarest cars on Earth!

More here on Barrett Jackson

Find of the Day: Flash Gordon’s 1968 Ford Mustang Shelby G.T. 500 – Barry Kluczyk @Hemmings

Advertisements

The 1968 model year was an interesting one for the Shelby lineup. Ford took increasing control in all aspects of the cars’ design, production, and marketing. Notably, production shifted from Shelby’s Los Angeles facility to a specialty factory run by A.O. Smith, in Ionia, Michigan — the same company tasked with producing the cars’ unique fiberglass body components. Additionally, Shelby opened an office in one of Motown’s industrial suburbs.

It was also the second year for the big-block-powered G.T. 500, with its Police Interceptor-based 428 engine. And while the original Shelby models were stripped-down, track-focused performers, the later Sixties saw an evolution of them into more luxurious muscle cars, like this 1968 G.T. 500 four-speed convertible, in Candy Apple Red, that’s offered on Hemmings Auctions. Along with its lid-lowering option, a Marti Report indicates it’s one of only four such convertibles ordered with factory air conditioning.

That makes it one rare Shelby, but according to the seller, the original owner was also a former Olympian and Hollywood action star: Buster Crabbe. After winning a gold medal in swimming at the 1932 Olympics, he went on to portray Tarzan, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon in popular film serials of the 1930s and 1940s. When his acting career began to slow, he became the public face of a New Jersey swimming pool manufacturer and it’s the Garden State where he apparently purchased this G.T. 500.

Read on

Ford’s Mach 1 concept envisioned a competition-prepped persona with a few forward-thinking features – Thomas A. DeMauro @Hemmings

Advertisements

The fertile imaginations of automotive designers have produced awe-inspiring renderings of idea cars with thought-provoking innovations. The freedom to explore new horizons, without having to be overly concerned about current production viability which could stymie creativity, has fostered positive results like those shown here.

Ford designer Charlie McHose, who’s also known for conceiving the body enhancements for the legendary 1967 Shelby G.T. 500, made these Mustang concept drawings of what would become the Mach 1 experimental car, as FoMoCo referred to it at the time.

First shown with the frontend design above, the Mach 1’s extensive restyling for 1968 is obvious in the color photo

Because the renderings likely pushed the limits of what was feasible, even for a concept car, the actual Mach 1 built for show duty in late 1966 didn’t incorporate a number of the ideas depicted.

Nevertheless, it was still quite the attention grabber with some GT40 traits incorporated, a dramatically lowered roofline, two-seat layout, and flip-out toll windows. Mirrors were added to the fixed side windows and large quick-release gas caps were installed. The front and rear treatments were revised, but they differed somewhat from the renderings.

Additionally, the Shelby-like lamps in the grille, the power dome hood, and the lower scoop shown in the lead drawing in this article weren’t used on the Mach 1. More intriguing elements presented in the renderings are discussed in the captions below.

The professional legacy of Charlie McHose endures in the remarkable designs he created at Ford. Fortunately, we can still appreciate these works of art and what their creator had envisioned in them. Just imagine blasting out of your local Ford dealer’s lot in a Mustang with the styling and equipment depicted here.

Read on