1970 Ford Trans-Cammer Mustang - All Business
The Trans-Cammer Mustang Blurs The Line Between Street Car And All-Out Race Car. And We Dig It. A Lot.
From the May, 2010 issue of Hot Rod
By Rob Kinnan
Photography by Wes AlIison
There's no better way to say it: This car is just 100 percent badass. Many projects, most notably those of the Pro Touring genre, have combined big-time performance with modern car convenience. This car eschews that in favor of a barely disguised race car with license plates, but also with some creature comforts and serious custom show car build quality.
Remember George Poteet's Sick Fish 'Cuda built by Rad Rides By Troy, the HOT ROD of the year in 2007? That was a pure land speed race car with Ridler-level detail. The Trans-Cammer, as this '70 Mustang is known, is a street car with Trans-Am race car-level performance, and if Cobo Hall allowed muscle cars to compete for the Ridler, this one might make it into the Great Eight.
We first reported on it in the Project Car section of the Oct. '06 issue and saw the finished animal at the '09 SEMA show in Las Vegas. We challenged it in the Mar. '10 issue to accept the HOT ROD Power Tour(r) Challenge and then invited it out to the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational the Saturday after the show to see it run around the road course and to have it pose for Wes Allison's Canon. Builder Philip Koenen of Grand Touring Garage (GTG) accepted. At Spring Mountain Motorsports Park, where the Invitational was being held, he was about 10 back in line to hit the road course as the beauty light hit, so we pulled him out of line to shoot the photos you see here. The bummer is that while he was fully willing to beat the car around the track, we needed the photos so he never got the chance. But look here and you can see that this is no bolt-together car. We have no doubt that it's nasty on-track.
The goal with the project was, in Philip's words, "to create a vehicle that is instantly recognizable yet different, incorporate some of the best features found on the original Trans-Am road racing automobiles utilizing state-of-the-art components and construction techniques, and select a unique and revered engine as the driving force. We designed and engineered the vehicle to not only perform as a street-legal automobile but one that is also capable of competing in open road race-type events and at tracks like Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta, Sears Point, and Willow Springs."
We've seen that done before, but this one blows them all away. At first glance, it would seem that the centerpiece is the real-deal '65 Ford 427ci SOHC motor, which at 600 hp is impressive enough, but look under the skin and it gets way more interesting than that.
First off, the chassis consists of 4130 chrome-moly front and rear clips designed by GTG and fabricated by Fast Eddie's in Orange, California, with Art Morrison 2x4 outboard framerails. The brakes are huge, the chassis is full-on race, there are underbody aero panels, and the fully 'caged and fire system-equipped interior combines racing frugality with a few street car touches (like electric windows from Electric-Life).
The body: Where do we start? There's not a single square inch that hasn't been touched in some way. The bumpers were narrowed, the body was channeled over the frame, the floor lacks any Ford parts, there are several carbon-fiber and fiberglass panels, the custom exhaust goes through stainless-covered rocker panels-and the list just keeps going.
Originally located in the shadow of Mickey Mouse (Anaheim, California), GTG moved to a bigger facility in North Bend, Oregon, and stated its business purpose as "offering a total in-house restoration and fabrication facility with a wide variety of services for the automotive enthusiast, covering the entire range of automotive marques and years from the 1900s through the early 1970s." The Trans-Cammer is an example of what the company can do, from concept, design, fabrication, machining, carbon fiber and mold making, among other things. GTG also does race cars and even motorcycles and has won top honors at such prestigious events as the Pebble Beach and Amelia Island concours. That's big time.
Will we see the Trans-Cammer on this year's HOT ROD Power Tour(r)? The editors certainly hope so, and after checking this thing out, we're sure you do, too.
"I have presented your gracious invitation to join the HOT ROD Power Tour(r) Challenge to my client and am awaiting his reply. Believe me, I am there already with the Mustang."
-Philip Koenen
