[MUSIC PLAYING]
MIKE MUSTO: What if I told you that bigger wasn't always
better, that bringing a knife to a gunfight can sometimes
have advantages, and that that old adage of "talk softly and
carry a big stick" is one of those rare and beautiful
quotes that you can live your life by.
Mike Maier of Maier Racing is not an overly large man.
He's not 6' 5".
He doesn't weigh in at 300 pounds.
And he's about as soft spoken as they come--
that is, of course, when you're not talking about cars.
You see, Mike is a guy that doesn't really care about a
car's bling factor.
Get the man talking about how to set up a car, though, and
how to make it go around a corner at speed, and you'll
soon realize that this mild-mannered man with the
little blue Mustang has the ability to crush any
professionalism you might have and make you make sounds like,
well, this.
[CAR ENGINE]
MIKE MUSTO: How do you not love this car?
My name is Mike Musto.
Each week I travel the country with the goal of showcasing
the best and baddest muscle cars and hot rods around.
Every car has a past and every owner a story.
Welcome to the world of "Big Muscle."
[MUSIC PLAYING.
CAR ENGINES REVVING]
MIKE MUSTO: Sometimes on "Big Muscle," we're fortunate
enough to come across a car that we don't hear about but
we see in person.
Mike Maier of Maier Racing, his '66 Mustang
Coupe is such a car.
I've seen a lot of pro-touring cars run at different events.
And while always impressive, there's one or two that
usually you'll look at, and you'll be like, I'd kind of
like to see that.
This one, however, really kind of hit me.
I'd also seen this car run at the Optima Ultimate Street Car
Challenge in 2011.
I decided, well, you know what?
I'm going to give him a call and see if he's interested in
being on the show.
So first off, he was interested.
Second of all, I was allowed to drive this
thing, which is fantastic.
But what I came to find out is not only is Mike one of the
nicest guys in the hobby, but he's a true enthusiast that
cares about one thing, winning.
Everything Maier Racing builds is about winning.
It's about doing it right.
This is not some big parts house shop that goes out and
says, we're going to order parts from here and do this,
and we're going to order parts from there.
They make everything in house, which nobody does anymore
because, honestly, nobody really can anymore because
they don't have the talent.
However, when you have 70 years of racing experience
behind you, that lets you learn a few things.
MIKE MAIER: My dad started it in '69.
And he Trans-Am raced from '69 until '91.
And he did everything from engine mods, transmissions,
rear ends, suspension, fiberglass, posters,
emblems, oil pans.
We did everything, only Mustangs.
So we do make pretty much everything here, with the
exception of a few items.
So if a part doesn't fit, that was us.
If it does fit, hey, that was us.
So the fiberglass, we hand lay everything.
Any carbon fiber work, we do it all here.
Molds, here.
Plugs, here.
Suspension, fixtures, everything, here.
This car here, my dad bought in '83, '84.
It was a '79 four cylinder burnt orange pile.
He made it into one of the very first of what I would
call pro-touring cars.
He put a wide body kit on it.
It had 15-10s in the back, 15-8s in the front.
Back in the day, that was pretty fat.
It had a 351 Windsor with Webers.
It had a top-loader.
They came with these cruddy old little three-speed
overdrives back in the early '80s.
He put a 9-inch with a Detroit Locker in it.
He put big rear drums, big discs in the front.
This car was a bad machine in the '80s.
And I drove it a little bit, and I really ruined it.
I just hacked on it.
And I cut it up.
And I did a lot of really stupid things to it.
And I ended up really cutting it up.
One day, I stripped every panel off the thing.
I pulled the motor.
I bought a suspension.
It wasn't what I was thinking it was.
So this was the first car I did suspension on
wholeheartedly.
I made my own struts with a good friend
of mine, Guy Ankeny.
He mainly did it.
I made my own rear suspension.
I did my cage.
That is the very first main hoop I ever put in a car.
We've ended up winning Nationals with this car
several times now.
We've won a pile of races.
And this is the village bicycle.
We just drive the snot out of it.
And it's evolved to this.
It's one of the fastest cars in the nation.
MIKE MUSTO: All right.
So standing next to me is Mike Maier.
And we're talking about your '66 Mustang.
Now, when I was at the Good Guys Show, I was kind of
enamored with the fact that you just kind
of destroyed everybody.
But then when I walked by the car, the trunk was open, and
that's what really caught my eye.
So could you explain to me about the suspension under
here and how you developed it?
MIKE MAIER: Sure.
MIKE MUSTO: Cool.
So what do we got under here?
Because this is one of the trickest systems I
think I've ever seen.
MIKE MAIER: Well, basically when we designed the
suspension, we wanted to be able to drive
the car on the road.
And if we put the coil-overs under the floor, the shocks
and springs under the floor, we didn't think we'd have
enough travel to hit train tracks with a
coffee in your hand.
So there just wasn't enough room.
So if we move them into the trunk, we can have all the
room we wanted to have a big stroke of shock and all that
good stuff.
So we can hit bumps and not pack out the shocks.
MIKE MUSTO: So it was really all about functionality, then.
MIKE MAIER: Yeah, we just wanted to
drive the car initially.
It had nothing to do with racing.
MIKE MUSTO: OK.
MIKE MAIER: And then we stumbled upon the geometry and
everything that went along with it.
So when we got into that, all of a sudden we started
noticing all the benefits and all the things that we could
do with it.
And it just grew from there.
MIKE MUSTO: So let's move to the front of the car, and just
give me an idea of-- we obviously know the back is
pretty trick.
Let's see what's done up front.
MIKE MAIER: Contrary to belief in the back, I really think
that suspension needs to be simple.
MIKE MUSTO: OK.
MIKE MAIER: We really focused on making sure the control
arms were the right geometry.
Geometry's kind of the heart of your suspension, the angles
and all that stuff.
Then what compliments it is the spring and the shock.
If you don't put good icing on the cake, nobody's really
going to be thinking about the cake.
MIKE MUSTO: OK.
MIKE MAIER: So we bought basically the best
shocks you can buy.
We got JRi shocks.
We're running a great hypercoil spring.
But the big thing with that is it just allows the geometry to
be accentuated.
You need to be able to control it with all that.
So we didn't go bonkers up here.
We just kept it simple and really good and clean.
[CAR ENGINE]
MIKE MUSTO: Power-wise, we're talking about a 302 with about
300 horsepower, four-speed top loader.
It's carbureted and it really is good.
I mean, you can see.
You roll into it, we've got the power.
We've got the brakes to throw it in.
They're manual brakes, Wilwood calipers, but the handling on
this car is truly sublime.
It's quick-steering.
You can pinch it in, hammer out.
The car's not going to skip.
It's not going to move.
What you have to do is you have to trust it.
You've got to trust it to throw into the corner.
Feel the tires bite.
Hammer out.
Put your foot on the gas.
I mean, just--
it's fun.
This is a slot car for the street.
I can see why Mike wins.
Most '66 Mustangs, if you've ever driven one in stock
condition, they're sloppy.
You have all that play in the steering.
You have all that play in the suspension.
Because that's what it was.
Mike's managed to take this car and really do special
things with it, to the point where I'm on a back road.
I want to take this on the track.
I want to take this on the autocross, and I want to line
this sucker out.
The car tells you, drive me at ten-tenths.
You know what I mean?
Let me do what I was built to do.
Now, unfortunately we can only experience a little of that
today because we're on public roads.
But I can tell you, because I've been driving cars for a
long time, both on the racetrack and on the street,
that this car is well built.
And the stuff that these guys preach, take it to heart,
because it's true.
MIKE MAIER: Basically, predicting what the market
wants, it's a crap shoot.
When the Eleanor thing came through, the movie happened.
It just happened.
And all of a sudden, everybody's calling you
wanting parts.
That was a huge help to our company.
The pro-touring scene, I think it was great.
People got tired of just looking at their car with
these big balloon tires.
They wanted to wheel it.
They wanted to drive it.
Well, we were already driving.
We'd been doing that.
So a good friend of ours, Brian, said, Mike, you've got
to take your Mustang out and wheel it.
And that's how we got started in it.
But what I basically figured out with predicting the market
was, to hell with the market.
Do whatever you do good.
And if you do something good and it's worth attention,
it'll bring it.
And if it's not, then, well, you're ass out.
[CAR ENGINE]
MIKE MUSTO: One of the cool parts about first talking to
Mike is Mike is not a self-promoter by any means.
You know, a lot of these guys you'll speak to, and it's, me,
me, me, my business, my business, we're better than
the next guy, and you'll constantly hear competitors--
hey, thanks for pulling over, Mr. Volvo.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
[BEEP]
MIKE MUSTO: Basically what he does is he just shows up,
wins, and goes home.
And then he lets people kind of go, what just happened?
Why did I lose when I just spent all this money on a car?
Well, you lost because there are other guys out
there doing it better.
They don't need to talk.
They just need to do.
These are the doers.
If you go out and you build stuff that is this good and
that can compete with their stuff, you let me know.
Right now, I haven't found it.
This car is fantastic, and it's fun.
I want to go to a track!
Oh, I want to go to a track.
MIKE MAIER: My excitement is getting dirty, laying on the
ground, racing.
I look back, I'm a little irritated about missing the
days when you could wear the bubble glasses, the
half-helmet, and you get out and your face is all dirty
because you were running a Lola, and you had a big block
strapped to your back.
I wish I had that day.
And I wish it was now, and it was current, and it was real
competition.
I think, the new stuff, hey, I'll wheel it.
I'll drive it.
I'll set it up.
But I think if there was a time that fit me the best, it
was Can-Am.
It was the old indie cars where you'd put it into a wall
and you wouldn't come out alive.
And this just matches my style better.
MIKE MUSTO: You know, I wasn't familiar with Maier Racing up
until, I'll be honest, quite recently.
But it wasn't because of their advertising.
It wasn't because of banners.
And it wasn't because of fanfare.
It was because I went to a car show, and I saw one
of their cars run.
And I was so intrigued by how well it did that I made it my
business to find out who they were and what they did.
A lot of people will take their product, and they'll
throw it in your face.
And they'll say, we're the best.
We're the greatest.
You need to buy our stuff.
When a lot of times, what you really need to do is shut up
and turn the internet off because, at the end of the
day, it's the quiet ones that you really should be paying
attention to.
MIKE MAIER: But this package here was just something
sitting in the shop.
Over a couple of years, we sat there and said--
MIKE MUSTO: [LAUGHS]
You said, get the [BLEEP]
out of my face, fly.
That's what we said.
MIKE MAIER: That thing's getting right there.
MIKE MUSTO: [LAUGHS]
MIKE MAIER: You saw it, too.
MIKE MUSTO: Yeah, because it was like--
[LAUGHTER]
MIKE MAIER: I feel like an elephant.
MIKE MUSTO: Welcome to "Big Muscle."