Words: Tommy Parry
Starting in 2009, Zach set off to build a car for open road racing events like the Silver State Classic. With the lofty goals that come with inexperience, he followed dreams much larger than his driving experience. Nevertheless, he plodded on and set his aims on building a machine which could pass tech for the class and run around 160 miles an hour. Quite an ambitious start.
As the pro-touring scene grew and the car evolved into more of a street-legal track weapon, Zach became more practical, ditched some of his wilder aerodynamic ideas and began focusing on what would bring him closer to the competition. He still intends to run this car at Utah Motorsports Campus with some regularity, but at this point, it is a ‘70 Mach 1 built to be as fast as it looks.
A combination of sleek looks and serious performance is no small achievement. Fortunately, he started with a stunning platform, but the age of the car means a bit of rust. Thankfully, only a little corrosion had taken the rear quarter panels. Always looking at the big picture, Zach took the opportunity to add a set of flares to better house the Jongbloed Aero305 wheels, which measure 18X11.5” all the way around and are shod in 305/53R18 tires.
That massive footprint would be necessary for a ~3,200-pound car using a punchy powerplant which might leave some scratching their heads. The engine is the ever-popular LS3, stroked to 418ci by the infamous Prodigy Customs. A Chevy motor sitting in a Ford’s engine bay is nothing new, but it still might offend the purist who can’t see the sense in using one of these stout powerplants – and as a result, Zach’s had to endure quite a bit of criticism from the forums. So, with a cheeky sense of humor, Zach’s given the car a fitting nickname: “Half-Breed.”
The Magnum T56 sits snugly in the tunnel – so snugly that some serious cutting was needed. A few patches, some trimming around the shifter mount and some very brawny-looking rivets later, and the transmission found itself comfortable in its spacious home. With the aid of a composite driveshaft from The Driveshaft Shop, some 450 horsepower is sent to a Lincoln 9” rear with 3.70 gears, a Platinum Track differential and Dutchman 31-spline axles.
While tinkering away at the interior, Zach added adjustable Wilwood pedals, relocated the fuse box and added door bars and a cage – something that would be appreciated when running highways at more than twice the speed limit. Plush Recaro seats out of a Lancer Evolution provide the perfect compromise between comfort and lateral support. Dakota Digital gauges and a black woodgrain vinyl covering, again, meet a perfect compromise, but this time between timeless style and focused, indifferent-to-fashion performance.
Zach is a clever character, and started doing the necessary research to build something that could multi-task like few cars truly can. What his trials and studying amount to is a car which uses a choice set of Griggs 350 suspension with Griggs four-pistons at all four corners. With the heft and the power available, something top-dollar was in order.
Though tinkering on the bodywork, flaring the fenders and shaping the roof were time-consuming, they weren’t all that technically challenging. What took up the majority of Zach’s time and patience were the innumerable pieces that suited both his need for a usable road car and the desire to have an effective racing car. Rarely do those two align, and as such, he’s spent a sickening amount of time planning, drawing and proposing ideas he would later negate – and he still has a bit to do. It’s a tough job building something which does both tasks well, but Zach’s done it and, I suppose, that’s what truly earns it the nickname “Half-Breed.”
