Robert Lubecky's 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1
Robert Lubecky from North Royalton, Ohio has a nice example of a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 and we were lucky enough to catch up with him and his musclebound Mustang. Robert is married to Linda and they have a son and two grandkids and these days, he’s retired. Robert has collected cars since 2012 and this Mustang is one of his latest acquisitions.
He bought the Mustang around twelve years ago in much the same condition as you see here. Originally, it was a clean, rust-free South Carolina car that underwent a complete restoration in the Palmetto State around 2007. Looking quite fetching in red with black accents on top of a deluxe interior, it retains a stock OEM look, although never judge a book by its cover. Not a garage queen, the car had roughly 63k miles on it when he bought it and Robert has put roughly 10k miles on it since then.
This red Mach 1 originally came with a fairly tame 351ci V8 mated to a C6 transmission, but a 429 big block bored out to 513ci was shoehorned in later in its life. Around 2014, the engine blew and Robert sent the motor over to engine builder Gary Box at Box Performance, based in Columbia Station, Ohio, who worked his considerable talents on this FoMoCo mill. He increased displacement to 557 cubic inches, added Edelbrock heads, and an Erson cam. Next, they installed an aluminum driveshaft from Precision Shaft Technologies and then connected that to a nine-inch Ford rear end with gears swapped from 4:10 to 3:23 so it would behave nicely on the street. Last but not least, spent engine gases are expelled via a three-inch custom exhaust system.
With a stout 11:1 compression, Robert estimates the mill is pumping out a stump-pulling 725hp. To keep things running cool, a push/pull fan was added behind the radiator, and while they were at it they beefed up the C6 transmission with a stronger torque converter as well. The car has Wilwood 10″ disc brakes all the way around with 15″ Magnum 500 wheels wrapped in BF Goodrich and Mickey Thompson rubber, front and rear respectively. Barr Restoration of Naples, Florida handled all the work in this phase and took about a year to complete. To the untrained eye, this car seems stone stock, yet the modern updates are there, lurking under this Mustang’s OEM skin.
(photo credit: Randy Pugh - Full Throttle Studios)
