With my focus set on a Ford Mustang of some kind recently, I couldn’t resist going back and looking at old footage of a car I dubbed “Project Mock One” about a month after I traded it off for the Chrysler 300C that you’ve gotten used to seeing on the pages of BangShift. Here’s the story: shortly after moving to Arizona in 2010, I traded what was left of my 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS, a car that had served faithfully for years, in for a 2005 Ford Mustang GT. The Monte Carlo had seen dragstrips, autocrosses, and some serious nomadic wandering in the two years that I had owned it, and the retro-look late-model Mustangs were appealing. The test drive sold it: according to the dealer, the Mustang was bought by a young lady who conned her boyfriend into splurging on speed parts for the car. She turned the automatic Mustang into a street racer and used it to terrorize Northern Arizona before she decided that what she really wanted was a six-speed Challenger. Her loss, my gain…the car felt a hell of a lot more gutsy than the factory 300 horsepower rating, and the exhaust barked with authority…as did the 1-2 and 2-3 shift. For most of the time I called Arizona home, the Mustang was my daily. It ran hard, it cornered great (wonderful in canyon country) and never gave me an ounce of trouble minus a clogged IAT sensor throwing a code. I got a local shop to help turn it into a phantom Mach 1, found some “fanblade” wheels that replaced the stockers, and tweaked the car to do better in the corners, using Steeda and Ford Racing parts and EBC brakes.

So, why did I trade this car off? Easy: for about two hours of driving, it was amazing. After two hours, it became painful, and the one time I had to cannonball 12 hours straight for a family emergency, I could barely move afterwards. But as a track car, it was awesome, and I hope that the young lady who owns the car now is having just as much of a ball with it as I did. With that in mind, here’s a couple of videos showing off what that car did best. The first one is a run I did with a friend of mine, Terry, on the way home from a day trip to the Lava River Cave near Flagstaff. This is Highway 89A, north of Sedona…specifically, it’s the area north of the Sterling Springs Fish Hatchery, and it’s made up of sharp switchbacks as you descend into the canyon. The video does not do the speed or elevation changes justice, but it gives you an idea of what’s out there. The second video was an autocross session that Local Motors (the folks behind the Rally Fighter) set up in their Chandler, Arizona factory’s parking lot. I had managed to turn this visit into an impromptu field trip that I led…something about business classes, whatever. It was an excuse to eff off for the day and get credit for it. The course was still being laid out, so don’t worry about the fire hydrant and surrounding posts…that was only a first pass.