(rock music)
(engine revving)
- We're here today at Sonoma Raceway
and I have a question for you.
This is the brand new Shelby GT350R
and this is a slightly modified 1966 Mustang Coupe.
We're here to find out, which one's faster.
(engine revving)
The guy in the helmet is Filip Trojanek,
the owner of the 1966 Mustang happily named Xecution.
It's been in his family for almost 50 years
and he began working on it at the tender age of 14.
Little did he know that his love for this little coupe
would set the stage for his entire adult career.
(engine revving)
- As you look at the car, you can tell
it's a '66 Mustang but that's had a lot of work done to it.
(engine racing)
The obvious things which is all the arrow on the car,
front splitter, the rear wing, the vented hood,
the big fender flares for the large tires.
There's nothing on this car that doesn't need to be there.
Because I hate it when people apply
that the wing is for show.
(techno music)
- You know, you take a look at the outside of this car
and then you put it up on the lift
and on top it's still '66 Mustang, kind of.
But underneath I don't recognize
anything that's '66 Mustang.
I mean, how much of this did you actually fabricate?
- I really just stayed with the unibody
and that's the only thing that's factory.
Like the suspension, the steering, drivetrain,
that has all been removed.
- Why did you stick with the basic unibody structure
of this car as opposed to going,
because you look at the car and you're like,
ah, it's going to have a full tube chassis
and everything else but it doesn't, it's still a unibody.
- I've never been in a tube frame car
that didn't feel like an all out racecar
and I really wanted to keep the feel of an original Mustang.
- Okay.
- Even with the cage.
- Yeah.
- So we did the cage that goes through,
snakes through the unibody and triangulates
the rear suspension all the way to the front.
- Okay.
- Completely, so it has the torsional stiffness
needed for a good handling car.
(engine decelerating)
This car has been many things over the years.
It was my mom's daily driver in the '60's and '70's,
she would take us to kindergarten in the car,
to elementary school and it was just always around.
It was my grandpa's car, it was my mom's car again.
And my mom wasn't driving it daily at the time
and I'm like, "Hey, Mom, you don't really
"drive it that much, you know, what do you think
"about if I just saved up and we did the,
"kind of a resto on the car?"
It took me about a year.
It had a V8 so I knew it could sound good.
So the first thing I did, I kept the stock wheels
but I went and got like a little wider version,
you know, some radials that weren't white wall,
because it did have white walls on it originally,
that was not going to work out.
Working on this car, I knew that I wanted to
do something technical for a living.
The thing that I've most focused on was engineering.
I like mechanical stuff, you know I like to see
the parts and feel the parts and just think
about geometries and how things move,
like mechanisms and things.
Suspension specifically is very
mechanical engineering oriented.
(machine grinding)
I started CorteX because people wanted the stuff that I had.
The things that I had been developing,
people would see them on my car and want to buy them
and also I was not able to find the parts
that I wanted for my car.
So CorteX's customers are everything from
track day enthusiasts up to professional race teams.
For example, we provide parts to Ford Performance
for their factory race cars.
(engine idling)
- So if somebody looks at this stuff,
give me the top five things that
make this like a CorteX style car.
- So we've got the Watts Link here,
we've got our torque arm, we've got rear coil overs
instead of the factory leaf springs
and then we've got the cambered rear axle.
And then in the front we've got our own
independent front suspension with our own spindles
and all of the geometry of modern rack and pinion steering.
Performance wise, I've always held my own
against modern super cars.
- So we're not talking like, Porsche Cayman
we're talking super horse.
- Yeah, like higher horse power, you know,
mid engine super cars.
- Okay.
- It's generally a lot quicker than other cars
that are considered in it's class, so.
Although it does compare to those,
it's just not really a fair fight,
it's like bringing a knife to a gun fight.
Probably the most controversial piece
of the car is the power plant.
(latch clicking)
- Dude, you've got an LS7 in this thing.
- Yeah.
- What the hell, this is a Ford!
You're going to blow up the internet. (laughs)
- Yeah, it was the best motor at the time
for my application and I'm an engineer so
and I'm not brand loyal. (laughs)
- So what's the deal, are you going to keep the LS7
or you going to go something else?
- So this has been in here since about 2006
and I'm currently moving back to a Ford motor,
that, the motor's being built.
- Okay, is it like Coyote based, or what?
- Yes, it's like based on a 5.2 but better.
- That's going to be cool.
Sweet, I can't wait to see that evolution.
So can Filip's home-brewed '66 hammer take on
the best factory production Mustang Fords ever made?
There's only one way to find out.
(engine revving)
Having previously driven the Shelby GT350R,
I knew it was good.
(cars accelerating)
In fact, it's the first factory Mustang
that's ever ventured into and at times exceeded
the performance levels of cars like the Porsche 911.
(engines racing)
And cars with an M or an AMG badge.
(engines revving)
This is the first time that I've ever really got it
on track to really play with it and see what it could do.
It is, for a factory production car,
it is unbelievably impressive.
The fact that you could rev it out to 8,000,
that extra RPM just let's you pull and pull and pull.
The brakes are good.
I mean everything is just, it's really--
- It's a nice package.
- I'm very curious because I don't know how hard
you were working but I was working pretty hard,
the car felt fantastic, I definitely had more in the car.
That thing's going to have to be ridiculous.
(engine accelerating)
- Well, let me tell you, I was kind of babying the thing,
I was probably only at about 6/10.
- Really, 6/10?
- Yeah.
- I was not at 6/10.
- (laughs)
- My first encounter with this car was watching it
hunt down a Ferrari on a racetrack.
It was was smooth and composed with
a soundtrack that would shake heavens.
(engine racing)
It was also still very much a Mustang and that's why
when I finally had chance to slide behind the wheel,
my jaw dropped.
(engine accelerating)
As I felt how good this little red coupe really was.
(engine shifting)
- What'd you think?
- You totally lied to me!
Dude, it's unbelievable.
It's absolutely unbelievable.
Where that thing is like, it's great
for a production car and it's very impressive,
this is on a whole other level.
Like this is like, this is like trying to
cut a steak with a butter knife,
this is like cutting a steak with a razor blade.
It's just it's, yeah dude.
- I'm glad you like it.
- So here's the deal, that right there is the car.
I've driven hundreds of cars, hundreds of fast cars,
hundreds of exotic cars.
That's the car, right there, mark my words.
(engine racing)
Okay, as surprising as it might seem,
the '66 wins on the track with no question.
But, how does it work on the street?
(engine revving)
Now here, in the wonderful state of California,
anything that is pre 1975,
doesn't need SMOG, right?
You can take it down to your local dealer,
your local SMOG shop and they'll be like, go out,
go away, you don't need to SMOG this car.
So, here in this state, we can get away
with having cars like this labeled as street cars.
Another little difference between this
and the GT350R as far as comfort goes.
I don't know if you can tell
but I'm almost sitting in the back seat.
Now mechanically, driving this thing on the street
is kind of a pain in the neck.
So as noisy and uncomfortable as the CorteX '66
is on the road, the fact that it has
a license plate at all, considering
it's blistering track performance, is amazing.
I know I've already said that it's faster
than the hallowed Shelby GT350R,
but you're probably still wondering, how much faster?
Well let me answer that for you.
It's not three or five or six seconds a lot faster,
you see, the '66 was over ten seconds a lot faster
around Sonoma Raceway than the best
2017 Mustang Ford has to offer.
(engine accelerating)
If that's not impressive, I don't know what is.
(up beat guitar music)
(car racing by)