Morning Symphony: The Group A Pinepac Ford Mustang GT


Morning Symphony: The Group A Pinepac Ford Mustang GT

So, I’ve been busy trying to figure out what the hell I want to do with the red Mustang once I get past the initial “get it running and beat on it like it owes me money” phase. Not that I’m ever going to stop beating on it, mind you, but more along the lines of, “it runs…now what?” It’s too pieced-together out of at least three different cars to worry about restoration, and I’m not really feeling a drag racer out of that. Besides, if we want to focus on a drag Fox body, Chad’s got his hands in a couple of badass machines as it is. So I’ve been digging…and truth be told, I wasn’t quite seeking out a road-racing Fox when I found this footage. I was actually trying to see if anybody had managed to come up with a workable Mach 1 graphic setup for a Fox body when this video entered the search bar. But hey, I’m all about road racing, so why not dive into what this car was all about?

So, front clip aside, what you are looking at is one of the two Mustangs that Don Smith brought to Australia in 1984, and this particular car is known as “Abe’s Babe”. Originally, the car was prepared for the 1984 Bathurst 1000 and was driven by Smith and Barry Seton, where it finished 18th overall and third in Group A. The car was then entered into the Australian Touring Car Championship where…well, it sucked. A string of DNFs plagued the early part of the year. The car was then sold to Wayne and Bruce Anderson, who updated the car to 1985 specifications (which was needed for some of the homologation rule changes that netted larger brakes, better front end components and engine modifications. The engine was prepared by Dick Johnson, and promise was there, but the car retired after seventeen laps with engine troubles. It kept racing until 1987, then disappeared out of sight until the mid-2000s, when it was found in New Zealand, restored, and now runs in historic racing events.


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2 thoughts on “Morning Symphony: The Group A Pinepac Ford Mustang GT

  1. steve pearce

    Ford missed a golden opportunity not producing a RHD version of the Fox Body to sell in the UK. It relatively small size would have been an advantage and with a host of tuners of american cars already in operation we could have seen some great race and rally cars competing in motor sport. They could have even called it a Capri which would have boosted sales!

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