Brad’s 2018 Super Hero Mustang: Marvel-ous in Every Nuance
Brad Francis fell in love with Mustangs as a teenager and he especially loved the 1969 models, but it took him until 2018 to acquire his own gleaming new Mustang GT in Magnetic Grey with black leather.
Brad and his wife Nicole had initially decided that their new pride and joy would be a daily driver but soon changed their minds. Instead, they hung on to their BG Mark 2 dedicated gas Falcon XR6 and decided to reserve the Mustang for weekend duties.
This soon led to regular cruises with the Melbourne Mustang Club, a great bunch of people, says Brad. Brad and Nicole’s ownership experience is a reminder of how much difference contact with like-minded enthusiasts can make.
Soon the first modifications followed. ‘I just made a few improvements starting out with some carbonfibre pieces and then kept going.’ Actually, he is still going…
Brad credits Ponyworx for much of his inspiration for this project. ‘The car is a bit of both their ideas and mine,’ he says. ‘We talk a lot,’ he says. For example, Brad reckoned a carbonfibre racing-style bonnet would be ultra-cool and sourced one in the US. The Ponyworx team then worked out how to get it shipped here, back in that early post-Covid era when logistics remained nightmarish. Not only is this bonnet a real point of difference from just about every other late model Mustang in Australia but it serves to lower engine bay temperatures: look cool, be cool.
Following the addition of a Whipple supercharger, upgraded fID1050x Injector Dynamics injectors and a Walbro fuel pump, the engine was tuned remotely by Palm Beach Dyno in the US. Computers did all the talking back and forth several times and the result of all this data-logging was an estimated 900+ horsepower.
The Mustang still runs its original six-speed automatic transmission but Brad does all the shifting himself, using the paddles, being nervous – with so many horsepower! – about the auto choosing a wrong gear at the wrong time. It also makes the driving experience even more enjoyable, he says. Nicole loves going on cruises in the car but does not drive it herself.
Listing every modification made to this superlative Mustang would require all the space available for this story, so check out this link to Brad’s car in the Enthusiasts section of the Shannons Club website:
https://club.shannons.com.au/club/enthusiasts/bfra7/garage/2017-ford-mustang/
But it is important to understand the full import of those IAMHLK rego plates. What Brad, Nicole and their friends have created is the Mustang as Super Hero, the ‘big green angry man of the Marvel cartoons’, as Brad succinctly puts it.
This process had its beginnings in the decision to paint the brake calipers Lamborghini green. Next came the supercharger and assorted other engine bay components. This in turn led to the fabulous green stitching on the seats. The dark metallic grey with bright green contrasts is sublime.
No question, Brad and Nicole cannot envisage parting with such a unique car.
Taking in a longer view of history, it is easy to see why the Ford Mustang exerts such a hold on the imaginations of so many of us, not only baby boomers but subsequent generations. Starting with the first cars in 1964 – initially the hardtop and convertible and some months later the fastback (this in itself a wondrous trifecta), then advancing to the 20-teens when Ford Australia effectively replaced the Australian Falcon with the American Mustang: in some months Mustangs sold more than the local hero had during its swansong!
There is no questioning the charisma of the 1960s Mustangs, but in my view no other manufacturer has so effectively created a retro car as has Ford with the modern Mustang, especially the 2018 Bullitt to celebrate the half-century of Steve McQueen’s starring role in the 1968 movie.
But even before Detective Frank Bullitt got behind the wheel of his Highland Green 1969 390 GT, Mustangs played prominent roles in movies. Think of the James Bond girl who drives an early model convertible in the 1964 Goldfinger – what a perfect foil to the Aston Martin!
Then in 1966 a white Mustang hardtop gallops home from competing in the Monte Carlo Rally into lasting cinematic memory in Un Homme and une Femme.
In the mid-1960s no other car in the world expressed modernity, the spirit of the Swinging Sixties, more effectively than Ford’s pony car, not even the wonderful Issigonis Mini. When the Beatles sang ‘Baby, You Can Drive My Car, couldn’t it be a white Mustang fresh from the Monte Carlo Rally that we picture?
Many people with no real interest in cars instantly recognise classic Mustangs. Interestingly, the 2019 movie Ford Versus Ferrari uses the public launch of the original (so-called ‘1964 ½’ model) in April 1964 to provide context for the coming challenge to Ferrari by the Ford GT40: the Mustang instantly connects with movie-goers who may have only a passing interest in racing or indeed cars.
There have been several generations of Mustangs, but the model that arrived on our shores as the Falcon petered out is nothing less than an inspired creation. It retains so many classic Mustang motifs but unlike on some retro cars there is absolutely nothing silly or overdone about the design; while looking utterly twenty-first century, the model takes baby boomers and younger generations back to the true heyday of the automobile, which for me was the 1960s and never better expressed than in the original Mustang, perhaps the second most important US car of the 1945-1965 period (behind the 1955-1957 Chevrolets where the modern ‘square’ high-compression V8 engine went to work beneath the bonnet of the American family car).
Every aspect of Brad’s 2018 Mustang is executed in the highest level of taste and the final effect is stunning, a true work of automotive art and a pleasure for we fortunate members of the Shannons Club to enjoy vicariously.
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