1966 Mustang vs. Shelby GT350R on House of Muscle

1966 Mustang racecar was once used to shuttle its owner to kindergarten. Now it’s battling modern Ford performance.

This 1966 Mustang is the poster child for Cortex Racing; a Mustang that essentially built the company. Mike Musto in his latest installment of House of Muscle, takes us through the life of the car, and pitches it on the track against a new, bone-stock 2017 Shelby GT350R.

How will an old, unibody, first-gen Mustang stack up against a new Shelby? Watch above and see.

You maybe didn’t catch that: this car is still a unibody with a custom-built roll cage. “Essentially the unibody is the only thing factory,” Cortex Racing owner Filip Trojanek tells Musto. For such a crazy racecar build, we’d only assume it was a full tube-chassis car, but it’s not.

“I really wanted to keep the feel of an original Mustang,” Trojanek said in the episode. “There’s nothing on this car that doesn’t need to be there, because I hate it when people imply the wing is just for show.”

Amazingly, this is the very car that was once used to take Trojanek to Kindergarten. Used as a daily driver by his mom in the late ’60s and early ’70s, it’s been in his family since new.

ALSO SEE: What Mustang Forum Members have to say about Cortex Racing

There’s one major element of this ’66 Mustang that doesn’t carry the original car’s feel, though, and that’s the power plant. Can you guess what it is? Ding, ding, ding: an LS7 engine. But don’t worry. Trojanek has something even better in the works.

The House of Muscle is in its first season on Motor Trend OnDemand, but it seems to pack a punch in terms of producing cool videos. This is only Musto’s 11th episode, and we’re hooked.