1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1: Reader ride

Date: 12.02.2015

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1...

Michael Woodcroft's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

I was looking for an XA-XC Falcon coupe to go with my four-door Falcon GT but couldn’t find one, so I thought I’d get a Mustang and the ’69 is about the best one. I bought my car about seven years ago from my landlord who’d sourced it from California. It was flat black, all original with air-con, foldaway seat, and standard 12-slotters and looked pretty tough. It’s a genuine M-code car and I paid top dollar for it, but I couldn’t live with it the way it was and ended up doing a full resto. I’ve been re-assembling it for the last five years and it’s only just gone back on the road.

I have a smash repair business but I did most of the work at home. I stripped it back to bare metal and it was surprising untouched and still had all the original stamped panels. I painted it in Ford Silver Jade metallic, which not many people believe exists. The interior is largely standard as I try to make all my cars look stock but go like they’re not. I did swap out the original steering wheel for a Grant wood-rimmed item, but I’ve kept the old wheel. The wheels are Torque Thrust with the centres painted soft grey metallic.

It had a 351, with a nine-inch and FMX transmission when I got it but me being me, I installed a Ford Racing 427 crate engine with a Holley 850 four-barrel, which I picked up from Metro Ford in Brisbane. The engine just fits but we had to reshape an exhaust pipe on each side so it would fit, as opposed to cutting the towers like they did on the Boss 429s. The engine is advertised at 540 horsepower and when it’s tuned right we’ll see what sort of numbers it’ll run at Willowbank drag strip. I’ll have to play with tyres, though, because you can’t really get on it too quickly: at half throttle it fills the cabin with smoke!

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