7 Purpose-Built Road Race Mustangs
What are the 7 most significant Mustangs built for road racing? See how our list compares to yours.
1. 1965 SCCA Champ Shelby GT350R Mustang
Much has been written about the birth of SCCA's seminal B-Production class and the Trans-Am series it spawned. Was there ever a better pairing of Pony Cars and road racing? Carroll Shelby made 34 of these GT350Rs and they won the B-Production title three years running, starting in 1965. As team driver Chuck Cantwell remembers, "The idea was to beat the Corvettes in SCCA B-Production, and we were able to do that our first year out." Shelby also took the '66 and '67 SCCA Trans-Am cups home, in 1967 with a baby-poop-yellow notchback that wore the logo for Shelby's Terlingua Race Team, a team they named after a ghost town in Texas.
2. The Boss (302) of You, 1970
After finishing behind the Penske Camaros in 1969 Ford was back behind Bud Moore and company with one of the most unforgettable racers in history. After wringing more torque out of the Boss 302, and a year of learning curve behind them, Ford took home the 1970 SCCA Trans-Am series championship with Parnelli Jones. Jones won five of the 11 races on the calendar that year. As he tells it, "The '70 chassis was specially built. The aerodynamics were modified quite a bit... Of course, it was a semi-race car, to begin with. We were armed with knowledge from the '69 season, and ex-NASCAR team chief Bud Moore was the one guy who wouldn't give up. He was my kind of guy."
3. Zakspeed IMSA GT Mustangs, 1981 (and 1982)
A decade after pulling out of racing in 1971, Ford changed its mind and looked to Germany to have Zakspeed build it a car to compete in the new IMSA GT series. Zakspeed built—brace yourself—a Capri-based car, and re-bodied it to look like a Mustang. Ford promotional materials for their return, including a billboard at Road Atlanta, announced: "The Boss is Back". Capri or not, the Zakspeed entry is one serious-looking machine—combining the personality of a production-based car with the angry flares and wings of an old-school prototype racer. This was the period of flame-spitting turbo cars and these Mustangs made nearly 700hp with their turbocharged 1.7-liter fours.
4. 1986 Roush IMSA GTO Mustang
The Zakspeed cars may have been spectacular but they didn't take home a title. Enter Jack Roush to fix things. Fix it he did with these Motorcraft-sponsored cars taking the SCCA IMSA GTO championship in 1985—with drivers Wally Dallenbach, Doc Bundy and 19-year-old John Jones. In 1986 the Roush cars were back, with Scott Pruett behind the wheel of #11. Pruett and driver Willy T. Ribbs, inventor of the Willy T. Ribbs Shuffle (in which he hopped up on the roof of his automobile and did a victory dance), had a sometimes-physical feud all season. As Pruett recounts: "It was in the car and out of the car. We would tend to run into each other, out of aggression, not spite. Well, maybe sometimes out of spite. In Portland in '87, we got into it physically." Roush won the IMSA GTO title again in 1986 with Pruett; rounding out the team was another driver you may have heard of—Bruce Jenner.
5. 1997 Trans-Am Mustang Cobra
Eleven straight in '98... okay, okay...'97. Present day auction prices for original Boss 302 Trans-Am cars from 1970 may be in the 1-2 million dollar price range which was pricey but necessary. That was the budget for the car Tommy Kendall used to win the SCCA Trans-Am championship back in 1997—1.3 Million to be exact. Kendall shattered Mark Donohue's previous record of 8 straight victories that year. As he tells it, a computer simulation was key to edging out the competition: "Everyone is always looking for one magic thing that's going to make the difference in a race car. But when you drill into the details, it's never one thing, but a bunch of little things happening just a hair differently to yield a totally different outcome." His record stands to this day.
6. 2010 Continental Tire Series Boss 302R
More a factory special than a purpose-built race car, the 2010 Continental Tire Series Boss 302R was the last Mustang factory-built for competition with a solid rear axle. To hear campaigner Joe Foster tell it, the chassis was not the star of the show. The engine was. Foster explains: "You try to emphasize what the car does well and minimize what it does poorly. What it did poorly was mid-corner speed. And so we gave up on mid-corner speed and tried to get entry speed with the huge front [sway] bar. At least we could roll in relatively fast, get the feet off both pedals and let it coast a little bit mid-corner, then touch the gas and get the chin up so it instantly snapped the rear out. And you drive it a tiny bit sideways through the rest of the corner." He adds, "We had a lot of Nissans, BMWs, and Porsches hitting us in the rear bumper because we weren't that quick in mid-corner. The car was fast on the straights. So, as long as I was ahead going into the corner, I could usually pull away on my way out." Point-and-shoot, a technique Mustang owners have employed for over 50 years.
7. 1967 Shelby GT350 SVRA Vintage Racer (Mystery Mustang)
This Shelby went as great as it looked. Those of you who attended your share of vintage races in the 1990s: we need your help identifying this car! A green-with-white-stripes (like the GT500 street car in the above photo is wearing) 1967 Shelby GT350 was a regular sight at historic racing events of that period—usually finishing in front of big-block Camaros, Vettes and whatever else it shared a track with. We never remember being at a race it DNFed. Maybe it was the driving, maybe it was preparation, but for sure it was speed because it takes a lot for a small block Ford to pull 7+ liter rivals at faster road courses like Road America. Research suggests that it could be serial # 67200F7A2965, a former SCCA B-Production champion (pictured above, right). So check those entry lists you tore off of bulletin boards back in the day and stuck in a drawer, and tell us what you come up with. With the death of gasoline-powered cars on the (distant) horizon, and many vintage racers 'too valuable' to be used in the way they were intended to be, now's the time to preserve the history of our historic racing series cars.
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