Canadian Mustang Owners Club - Ford Mustang Forums - My 11-year saga of Mustang ownership, in words and photos

It was back in the summer of 1987, at age 21. Had just got a healthy raise and pat on the back at work (order desk of the Ford authorized remanufacturer for Ontario and Quebec), decided that I was ready for my first new car. Wanted the cheapest, quickest car with A/C that I could get. My father, who was a "Herb Tarlek" (radio ad sales) was friends with the owners of a few Ford dealerships in the area. One in the NW corner of Toronto kept a bunch of stripper 5.0 Mustangs in stock. I had test driven an 86 GT previously, couldn't afford it then. So for 87 the choice was an LX hatchback, wanted the cargo space, though the notchback cars look tougher. Looking for something without flashy paint, wanted it fairly low key. So for about $14K out the door, I had a shiny new 5.0 LX hatch with air and nothing else, not even a stereo.

By the fall of 1987 and spring of 1988 I was down at the local drag strip pretty regularly for time trial days, just trying to learn to drive the car better, and tweak stuff to get it quicker. Stock it was running 14.50s at around 94 mph. With sticky rubber, front stab. bar removed, a short serp. belt to bypass the A/C and P/S, timing advanced and a cone K&N filter, I got a best of 13.81 at 100.8. Even ran a 13.96 once on the stock POS Goodyear Gatorback rubber. This was with full stock exhaust and 3.08 gears, it was a strong car.

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But in the summer of 1988 I found out about Solo I events held at Shannonville Motorsport Park, a small track about 2 hours east of Toronto. Signed up for an event, managed to scoop a used set of 16" T-Bird Turbo Coupe wheels and Yokohama track rubber to go on them. Now this was some real fun!!

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By 1990 I was sucked right in, competing in all the Solo I and Solo II events I could afford. Still living at home, and by this time working at a Ford dealer, I could pull it off. Konis, Ford Motorsport springs, rear discs, an Auburn diff., Dynomax exhaust, and other bolt-on goodies found their way on to the car. By this time I had three sets of wheels for it, one set being 3-piece Simmons 16 x 9" lightweight beauties from Australia.

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Ended up with Dart heads, GT40 intake, and a B cam in the 302, the car was a blast with the extra grunt and upgraded suspension. I was in love with the magnetic-backed decals at this point apparently, guess I though they each added 5 hp like the yellow stickers the Honda guys plaster their cars with:

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By the late summer of 1991, I was ready to mix it up wheel-to-wheel, a few of my friends from Solo I had moved on to regional CASC (Canuck equivalent of SCCA) racing at Mosport, which is just NE of Toronto. Old time circuit, 2-1/2 miles with big elevation changes, close to a 90 mph average for a lap in the Mustang there, so you were cooking through some of the bends at 100+. Initially I had rented a friend's prepped 5.0 Mustang to do a few races, then it was my own car's turn. Borrowed the cage from my friend's car, drove it to the track, taped up the lights, stuck some numbers on it, bolted on the shaved tires, window net in ... good to go:

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Managed to make it through unscathed, don't remember the exact finishing position, midpack anyway. I was now hooked on the next step of the pyramid of speed, wheel-to-wheel road racing.

For 1992 I decided to have a full go at the season, running in the Showroom Stock Grand Sport class. The CASC rules were a bit more liberal than SCCA Showroom Stock, we were allowed to prep the cars very similar to the IMSA Firehawk rules, with non-OEM springs and shocks. Unfortunately I missed the first race of the season because the cage wasn't finished. It was Multimatic Motorsports, the guys who do the prep on the new Mustangs for Grand-Am Cup, who did my cage. At that point they were just starting in to the racing game, and I had been selling some of their Mustang chassis components through the dealership.

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A great clear shot of the car, too bad that I had overcooked Corner 9, and spun in to the pit lane entrance:

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Even drove down to Watkins Glen in NY for a combined SCCA / CASC weekend, had a blast there doing a couple of sprint races and a 1-hour enduro, despite some brake issues:

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Retaped the headlights for Sunday, the overcast weather made it hard for my buddies crewing to pick my car out from the other dark coloured Mustangs running. Love the bit of air under the left front tire:

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In August of 1992 I had enough signatures on my driver's log card to get a licence upgrade to National status, allowing me to apply for an FIA Canada Pro-B grade licence ... I wanted to run in the Firehawk Endurance series. Ended up getting about 9 hours of seat time in the 24 hour race in an Escort GT. Finished 6th in class and 15th overall out of about 40 cars. But I was starting to get a bit cocky about my Mosport driving skills, after successfully completing the 24-hour cleanly, and getting to the top of the podium in my own car one weekend:

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A few weekends after the 24, ironically on the only dry, sunny race weekend of that summer, it finally happened. The car went from looking like this:

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To this:

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Corner 2, the 90-foot downhill, off-camber, double apex 100 mph monster had finally bit me, on the last lap of the Sunday 30-minute sprint race. So instead of a 2nd place class trophy for the weekend, I got an ambulance ride. While I was getting checked out at the track medical facility, then taken down to the nearest hospital for X-rays, my poor car was being loaded up to go back to the pits:

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Fans of Dream Car Garage on Speed Channel might recognize a much slimmer than present day Tom Hnatiw to the right of the car, he also raced a 5.0L Mustang at the time:

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This was the first weekend that I was unable to drive the car home from the track. Later that week I borrowed a friend's truck and trailer to get the car back to the dealership body shop. At that point the car was still my daily driver in the summer, A/C and all. We ended up putting rear quarters and a taillight panel from another car on, it was tweaked pretty hard. It was getting near the end of the season, and I didn't want to dwell on the crash all winter, then be too psyched out to run hard again in the spring. So the bodyshop guys got it patched together in time for the last race, weren't able to get any paint on it though. Ran the last race of 1992 looking like this:

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I was about a second a lap off my usual pace, tiptoeing through corner 2 a bit. But the crash repair made me want to get more serious with the car. So over the winter of 1992/93, I got a set of Baer PBR brakes in 5-lug (the Mustang Cobra stuff wasn't available yet), Koni DA shocks, 1000-lb. front springs, and some new Ronal ACT 16 x 9.5" wheels. I was sponsored by Bridgestone at the time, and they didn't have any 17" R-compound stuff yet. Since most of the car needed painting anyway, I came up with this, partially inspired by the Saleen Mustangs running in SCCA endurance racing:

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Ran a few races that way, but the huge brakes needed more suspension to keep the nose from diving and tail from lifting. Took the car apart to get all of the mounting points for the front and rear control arms reworked, couldn't buy any of the cool tubular K-members and control arms yet. I was out of the Showroom Stock class by then, and had a 347 stroker built up. However, I lost that first dealership job in the middle of all that, and the car sat disassembled in my parents' garage for a while. Moved it to a storage unit, and ended up selling it to a guy from the Ottawa area who was going to use it for open-track days.

No pics of the end, but I admit to having a tear in my eye when he loaded it on his trailer, and headed down the road with it. By 1998 I had owned the car for 11 years, ran it down the drag strip about 150 times, and done a zillion laps at Shannonville, Mosport, Watkins Glen, Nelson Ledges, and Waterford Hills at lapping days, Solo I events, and wheel-to-wheel competition. What a fantastic little car, hardly ever let me down despite the flogging I subjected it to. Back in 1987, when it was my first ever brand new car, my pride and joy, I couldn't have imagined that it would go from this:

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And end up like this:

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I still miss the car sometimes, but if I was to do another Fox Mustang, it would be a completely different buildup with the huge selection of aftermarket parts available now. Driving a friend's nicely modded 89 at Mosport last summer for a few laps at the GHMA club day got me a bit wistful, but I think I will remain a former Mustang owner for now.

cheers
Ed N.