Everybody knows the feeling of wanting to be on top. Many try, many fail, some succeed. What a lot of people fail to recognize is that failure is part of the program. If you don’t fail, you don’t know where to apply fixes, and you never learn where your weak points are at. Case in point was a Detroit native named Joe Ruggirello. A part of the racing underground, Ruggirello waived the Ford banner but was finding out that one out of every four races with his 429-powered Torino left him watching taillights. Now, there are plenty of folks who would be quite satisfied with being on the winning side of the equation 3/4 of the time. Not Joe. He was not pleased and wanted to fully clean house when he went trolling for a race, and the Torino was hauling a little too much ass when it came to the street.
Photo: Hot Rod Magazine
The car that replaced the Torino is the stuff of legends. Famed Hot Rod Magazine editor Gray Baskerville went for a ride in it and said, “It’s experiencing the gut-ball power in an age of gutless performance,” and we don’t know if that was written before or after Jack Roush did everything in his power to scare the ever-loving hell out of Ol’ Dad. It’s stance was pure Pro Stock, and that wasn’t by accident: Ruggirello had the silver 1975 Ford Mustang II built by Gapp and Roush. Yeah…THAT Gapp and Roush. And to put it into the only context that car ever needed, it was not something to f**k with. The 505ci Boss 460 was set back in the engine bay ten inches, was hooked to an automatic with a 4000 RPM stall converter, and sent out back to a pair of big-ass slicks. By visual standards, it looked like one of Gapp and Roush’s Pro Stockers after a repaint back to stock.
By performance standards, the only thing that would kick your adrenaline up faster would either be a needle slammed into your heart or a bomb blast directly behind you, maybe both. Both the horsepower and torque figures were deep in the 500 territory, and the whole package rolled in under 3,000 pounds curb weight. This wasn’t a sleeper, this was a rolling dare. Bring out the Hemis, the Rats, the mighty Mouse in the Corvette that thinks that a Mustang II…even one that looks like the NHRA’s current darling…is a limp attempt at performance. Bring them out, and let that sad-sack Mustang II stomp a hole through their chest like a pissed-off biker. Ruggirello’s goal was total domination, and if someone started getting close to his bumper, legend had it that an all-aluminum Ford racing engine snuck out of the back door just might be ready to drop in at a moment’s notice. By the time the Mustang II was sold off in 1981, turbochargers were being investigated after finding the one car that could take it on: Steve Lisk’s Lenco-equipped Challenger.
The little Ford bounced around from location to location for most of the 1980s, winding up in Indiana, New Jersey, and finally Florida. Tom Tate had spotted the car, which had been repainted in a Shelby-esque white and blue, at a Fun Ford weekend in 1995. The car vanished off of the radar until 2010, when he found it on eBay for sale. He’s since restored the Mustang back to it’s original setup, complete with off-colored gray gelcoat bumpers and original rear suspension.
Not an LS in sight!
This beauty could actually be shown at the prestigious Pebble Beach concours where they have featured classic rods and customs for some time. Everything looks as though it came from the factory and the builder just added different wheels and tyres. The paintwork and interior are lessons in sublime subtlety and everything looks just right. As for that Mustang II suspension – its long been used as a front clip in many cars because of its over-engineered strength. That makes me wonder if Ford ever considered a big block Mustang II somewhere along the line.
I’d like to see more of this collection of fine Fords at some point but for now I’ll just bask in the glory of this awesome creation….
I recall the original article. As I recall, Joe liked to taunt Steve Lisk, who happened to work for Mike Fons. Mike helped to prepare the 71 Challenger for the match. As I recall, Steve won after some prep work (according to Steve 4 out of 4). BTW, I have both Fords and Mopars, and like both very much. Basically, these were match race cars on the street (Love it!). In addition to no LS motors (far in the future) there was no nitrous, or blower involved – On the motors and driver skills (no small thing on the street). :^)
The best part about Lisk’s Challenger was Hemi power and Lenco shifted!
Also remembered the article too back in the day. Now that was Pro Street to the max!
Just to straighten out a few things, the taunting between Joe & Steve went both ways and was mostly in fun. As to the Challenger, Mike Fons did the chassis work but George DeLorean built the original motor. The Lenco trans was straight out of the Motown Missile. Joe actually won the first race but Steve won the last 3. I have been in touch with Tom Tate since he first purchased Joe’s car. He researched everything he could find and did a wonderful job restoring the car. One of these days I’m hoping to see it in person again.
This is my definition of pro street, a car that can back up its looks.
Dennis Gage is a clown, never could stand to listen to him or look at the Weasel living on his upper lip.
Thanks, Ted; I just spat coffee all over my keyboard…
I was at Detroit Dragway in 1977 0r 78 when Ruggirello and Lisk trailered their respective “street cars” in for a grudge race. As I was waiting to get my car through tech, another Detroit area racer, Danny Scott (Mom’s Headache pro stocker) drove into the drag strip in an early chevy II convertible, his girlfriend (or wife?) in the passenger seat. He dropped her off, pulled the pro stock chassied, lenco shifted, mufflered little deuce to the starting line and proceeded to run a high 8 second pass~! Lisk never made a pass. Ruggirello never took his car off the trailer. Fastest street car settled in 8 seconds..
Is this the same Danny Scott with the 66 Chevelle back in the 90’s? How come this Chevy 2 was never mentioned back then?
Jerry Z yes this would be the same Danny Scott with the Chevelle. That was a duplicate of his original 66 Chevelle that he ran in the ’70s along with Joe Webb in the Mom’s Headache II Car.
Well Joe Jolly, I remember that story a little bit differently. I don’t ever recall a time that Joe & Steve ever had their cars at the same track at the same time. The DD story did involve Danny Scott (Mom’s Headache) but it was his Monza Pro Stock car. At one point Danny & Steve worked both worked for Mike Fons so were friends. Gil Cohen had been bugging Steve to bring his car to DD so with Danny’s help we decided to go. Both cars were trailered to the track. When we got there Gil was promoting the big match race Street Car vs. Pro Stock. We were laughing as Danny’s car was a good 1 1/2 seconds faster. But what the heck. They did run the cars between time trials & eliminations. Steve red lighted and Danny still won. Just a copy of friends having fun.
here is a link to the car as it was being restored
http://motownmuscle.com/forums/showthread.php?144139-Joe-Ruggirello-Gapp-and-Roush-Mustang-II&highlight=sudden+death
Very cool. I loved that article on the car and mentioned that to Gray Baskerville when I saw him about a year before he died.
Great job of restoring it. A couple minor things he changed but they were upgrades that probably should have done back then too like the 5 lug front wheels.
I think I saw Steve Lisk’s Challenger at Columbus on Labor Day weekend 1986. I was there for the Ford Expo show and we went to a shopping plaza to catch the street racers hangout. Cars would disappear in small groups of two serious race cars and a couple normal cars and would be back in a couple minutes. When we left we followed some and they would stop right on the freeway, do burnouts and line up and run. Then the starter would take off after them and the finish line spotter pulled out behind them.
“Ruggirello waived the Ford banner…”
“Waved?”
Waived means he was against the idea.
(Waiver.)
steve