- BODY: Auto World
- WHEELS & TIRES: Road Race Replicas
Classic era Fords are endlessly confusing to me. Even the most knowledgeable car guys get thrown off by their scrambled families of engines with similar displacements and similar names, but as confusing as the engines are, even the models themselves sometimes throw me for a loop. Such is the case with the Mach 1. For the longest time I thought the Mach 1 designation was necessarily a high-powered, high performance car. I probably thought that because most Mach 1’s are optioned as high performance models. But it was only fairly recently that I came to understand that, unlike the Boss mustangs, which designated specific engines and a selection of performance options, the Mach 1 was a trim package which could be had in addition to-but also independently of-high performance specs.
Well, mostly; even here that is not a blanket statement: for instance, there were no 6-cylinder Mach 1’s; the base engine was the 351 Windsor, but if you wanted to cheap-it, you could get a 2-barrel carb and a 3-speed manual trans. I doubt that many were so equipped, but you could! Its likely that most Mach 1’s were equipped with the 4-barrel dual-pipe 351 or the 428 CJ, although everything up to the “Drag Pack” 428SCJ with the Detroit Locker rear axle was available.
As great as this car looks, its performance has been something of a disappointment. That isn’t too surprising considering that this body is both long and heavy, but the odd thing is that the same body as a yellow Boss 302 has been an awesome performer, so I’m not sure what accounts for that. She’s had all the best of the best parts: the Ultra-G with OS3 Black Dragon magnets, RRR axles with painted Magnum wheels and low-profile tires, even an OS3 Lightning Rod guide pin. With all this, she is astonishingly fast, almost too fast. After enough messing about with the traction magnet I’ve gotten it to where it will stay on the track-for the most part-but it still doesn’t corner the way some of the other cars do. In spite of its length and weight it has a low profile, so one would think it would do better than it has. So, tuning and improvements on this one continue.
There’s no faulting the presentation, though! Nicknamed “The Punisher”, this Grabber Orange bad boy is piloted by Nick “Nitro” Norris, a San Diego native who cut his teeth on the quarter mile portion of Drag City and won many tournaments there before recently building this car for the road course. The body has all the right black stripes in all the right places but lacks the optional rear window louvers, as many real Mach 1’s did. The optional “shaker” hood scoop sans latch and held in place by removable pins leaves no doubt that the motor-vation for this Mach 1 is the Big Boy, as if the deep throated rumble that accompanies startup wasn’t clear enough. Though originally equipped with the C6 automatic, Norris elected to ditch the auto in favor of the 4-speed manual, a wise decision for the track. Hopefully he kept that original tranny handy, because we know what these “numbers matching” cars will be getting for prices by the 2020’s! Here in 1984, however, its all about the numbers on the track. With only a few race wins to his name so far, Norris and “The Punisher” still have a lot to prove, but can you imagine how much fun proving it will be?
The Punisher definatly looks like it could go the distance. I had always heard those terms Mach and Boss but never new all that about the options. I can see how that can be confusing but with those variations, that would make a lot of those cars unique. Very cool! Best of luck to Norris and looking forward to hearing about his wins in that beautiful machine!