Words: Tommy Parry

With a level of ambition even some professional athletes don’t possess, let alone most high school students, Dan rebuilt this Falcon during his junior and senior years. After limping to school in this car in the morning, he’d wrench on it until late at night and repeat the process the next day. Once he went to college, it got thrown on wheel dollies, spun sideways and sent into hibernation at the back of the garage at his parents’ house.

Fast forward two decades, and Dan decided to pull it out and finally transform it into the machine he wanted it to be, but was unable to bring to fruition due to finances.

Now, with a wallet full of bills and a head full of visions, he returned to his high school sweetheart with the same vigor. First, he put the Falcon up on rotisserie and stripped it all, along with all the wiring, brake lines, and other pieces. A friend owns a chassis shop, and Dan desired something better than the old unibody. So to get it there, he had to build a makeshift chassis out of 4x4s and caster wheels.

There, he began devising a tubeframe for the Falcon, complete with a Mustang II front end. That required recessing the firewall by two inches, then covering the interior with tin, which he sprayed with Lizard Skin and began building a rollcage around. He wanted this to be a racecar with license plates and all the trimmings.

Unfortunately, that promising start was cut short. First, Dan was laid off, then went back to school, found a new job, and just when things were going smoothly again, he had to endure seven months of physical therapy after getting rear-ended. Once he’d found the motivation to get started again – and you have to wonder how he did – he gave the Falcon a coat of flat black paint to check the body in preparation for a coat with plenty of revealing pearl. However, he’s growing fond of the black paint, remarking, “It’s like the evil twin of the car I had in high school!”

Though he planned to put a 514ci in initially, Richard Brown, a chassis shop friend, suggested going the aluminum small block twin turbo route. It would save a lot of weight, making the car more nimble and also a lot more streetable. Swelling with enthusiasm, he dropped in the built 4.6-liter 4V motor and purchased a pair of BorgWarner S362 turbochargers, which Brown assembled the kit for. Things were coming along quite swiftly.

Inside, the standard was just as high. He started with Autometer gauges installed in a Scott Drake mustang gauge panel, an Ididit Pro Lite column and an NRG release holding a classic wood-rimmed wheel from Forever Sharp Steering Wheels. He even relocated the master cylinder to minimize clutter.

To manage those infernal levels of heat, he installed two air-to-water intercoolers behind the headlight buckets, which he had to trim just to fit the coolers. With such an elaborate turbo setup, there’s not much real estate for anything else.

There’s plenty to look forward to with Dan’s superhuman skills and such an interesting combination of parts. Since he’s gone to such extreme lengths already, many of the parts are totally custom, and the future promises more of them. Fueled by teenage enthusiasm and an adult’s bank balance, the Falcon promises to be one of the wildest pro tourers around. Thank goodness it was saved from cobwebs and decay in the back of the garage.

To keep tabs on its development, you can view Dan’s build thread here.