1985 SSP Race Car

[Musturd]

I thought you guys might enjoy seeing my latest project, I bought this car from an old road race track, it was used as the trainer in the school that was at the track. I brought it home, cleaned and freshened things up enough to take it to the road coarse and a couple of autocross events and was having a blast. At the last autocross event, someone one walked up and said hey that must have been a cop car in the past! Duh, never even dawned on me that the spotlight holes indicated SSP car. I spent some time researching and found the Vin number in a group of cars that where in service in Nevada.

Sorry to all of you purists who would have turned it back into a Nevada car, I decided that CHP was more Iconic and would get a better reaction from people at the track. I repainted it California colors, have decals coming from M Squad, found spotlights and antennas and it will be off to the races by May. It has a complete plastic front end, so it will have decals for lights etc.
I plan on racing three different venues with it. The motor I am building is around 375 HP and I will spray it it with 150-250 of NOS for the drag-strip, And will just run off the motor for the road course and autocross. I am putting coil-overs all the way around and will adjust suspension with different weight coils and sway bar arrangements. My decals should be here and the exterior of the car should be done in about a month. I have attached pictures from when I bought the car and one right after I pulled it out of the paint booth.
By the way, the car is fondly named "The Turd" or Musturd, my friends say it is now a polished Turd with all of the work I am putting into it.

Aron

[stadair]

Very interesting...and cool. Hopefully nobody will get too offended that it is a race car. At least you weren't the one to convert it. LOL. Have fun!

[John10608]

Nice !
Looks like a Ford thunderbird front end ?
Won't the antenna and spot lights slow you down some ? lol

Looks more like a short tracker than road coarse car. I can't see the drag racer in it at this time ! Best of luck !
Good pictures !

[Musturd]

After I posted, I called the guy I bought from and he said it was a Colorado State Patrol car and they bought a bunch of them back in the 90's. They car works really well on the road course, we have a world class track her in Colorado named High Plains that is around 2 1/2 miles long with lots of elevation changes, that is a blast. The drag car will have different tires and rubber along with a complete drag suspension set up off of a 89 fox body that I parted out.
This car isn't street legal, so if I don't make it more useful by driving different venues, it will only get used a couple of times per year.

[mac88chp]

Very interesting and cool. I've seen many, many SSPs that were turned into race cars and personally I have no problem with those that were converted back in the day. People have to remember that when most of these cars came out of service there was little to no appreciation for preserving them, they were just cheap and easy speed to be used as daily drivers (and beaters!) and racers. However, I would generally oppose most conversions nowdays, esp. with certain rare models that have preservation potential.

Post up more photos when you get the decals installed.

[ImEvil1]

+1. Cool old car, and first '85 Colorado car I've seen surface.

[28HopUp]

Interesting car! Is there any chance you could post a picture of the VIN label on the driver's door? I would love to add it to our VIN Project.

[Musturd]

I will post the VIN number when I get a chance, it is in the car trailer with a 4 foot snow drift in front of it from Saturdays storm. I will have it out by next weekend.

[John10608]

You should bring the car to Thunderhill in Willows California. They have a Mustang day there once a year I believe. ( www.thunderhill.com )
Check their website.
It's a pretty cool road coarse.

[93chipper]

not as bad as how these cars ended up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FXpl4KbBKo