The 1967 Ford Mustang fastback—this was the year of the OG pony car’s first major revision—is one of the most iconic machines of all time. And while some dream of owning an original, others prefer to bend the ‘Stang into their desired shape. And, in the case of Chris Steinbacher, the enthusiast behind the B Is for Build YouTube channel, that form happens to be a mid-engined one.
Converting classic muscle cars to a midship layout seems to be one of the highest forms of customization these days, not that it’s anything new. And, before any purist objects to this pony’s transformation, allow us to remind you that the Blue Oval itself experimented with a mid-engined ‘Stang back in the day, with at least one prototype being built to create the 1967 Mustang Mach II concept that never made it into production.
However, for Steinbacher, this project is about more than recreating history, as it allows the aficionado and his crew of fabricators to tie up loose ends. You see, having a fetish for the ’67 Mustang fastback saw the man attempting to build a replica of the 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Eleanor from the 2000 movie Gone in 60 Seconds.
After having completed most of the work on the build, the B is for Build team received a cease and desist order from the legal team of Denice Halicki, the owner of the Eleanor trademark, who had famously also won a case against the late Carroll Shelby himself back in 2008, determining the creator of the iconic go-fast Mustangs to stop selling Eleanor replicas.
Not only did B Is for Build had to remove all the YouTube episodes about the project, but they also had the tribute car seized to settle the legal matter.
Steinbacher is one of social media’s favorite builders, not least thanks to his attitude involving a can-build-anything-like-LEGO take. And while he also briefly mentions the ’67 GT500 when discussing this new project, he’s dipped his toes into a different Hollywood production this time around and intends to stay out of trouble.
While the body panels that give the ’67 Mustang fastback its visual identity are Ford-licensed units built by Dynacort, the base vehicle is quite unusual.
Remember the 2014 Need for Speed movie? Maybe or maybe not, but you certainly know its machines
Underneath the said panels, we find the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport replica from the 2014 Need For Speed motion picture. As the builder discovers in the first video below, this was car #2, the one that got hit by the Dodge police car for the camera.
The aluminum mid-engined platform serving multiple supercar/hypercar replicas in the movie came from Race Car Replicas, being modeled after the Superlite SL-C track cars and sporting Chevy LS motors.
Now, the body of the vehicles, which had been built in fiberglass by LA-based Reel Industries following CAD specs from the carmakers themselves—they wanted their products to be in the movie, but why sacrifice genuine units-were destroyed once filming was done.
In fact, all the branding that remained on this unit when Steinbacher purchased it from the man who had bought it from the production crew, was the fiberglass Bugatti dashboard and a Koenigsegg replica wheel from another movie car.
Now, as Steinbacher had found out during his multiple Franken-builds completed in the past, such as this R69 GT-R featuring an R34 body on an R35 chassis—some projects are easier said than done.
Cutting, welding, stripping, building—this project has already received some serious work
So, in the second clip below, you’ll see the builder explaining why he decided to cut the aluminum chassis ahead of the front seats and expand it by 3.5 inches rather than removing some metal from the said ’67 Mustang body panels.
It all has to do with fitment, as well as the access to the vehicle, which won’t be the greatest feature of the two-seater.
“Would I rather have a mid-engined 1967 Fastback that’s a little hard to get into or not have one at all? Let’s keep building because I want my fastback!” the builder tells us.
The LS3 sitting behind the seats sends the power to the rear wheels via a manual tranny and a Porsche transaxle.
And while the team has had to remove quite a bit of the base vehicle’s tubular structure to make the new body panels fit, there’s still plenty of work to do.
For instance, they have to come up with a proper firewall—some simple tape was enough for the movie car—and perhaps install a new fuel cell, while restoring some of the chassis bracing they removed.
The result will be a classic Mustang Fastback sitting extremely low to the ground and, as dictated by those SLC track cars, packing stellar handling.
With the motor running (you can hear this waking up to life at the 12:35 point of the first video), the goal is to place the body on the vehicle and showcase the in-the-making build later this month at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway-held LS Fest 2022 (April 22-24).
