QUANTUM LEAP —
900HP MUSTANG WAR MACHINE
Take your pick of whatever motorsport discipline gets your blood pumping. Imagine being handed the keys to whatever constitutes the most extreme vehicle permissible in competition anywhere in the world. Now realize that, for people like us, the possibility of that happening is almost certain to remain nothing more than a far-off dream. For Whangarei man ‘Fanga’ Dan Woolhouse, though, things are a little different. A humble sales manager by trade, Fanga is very much a regular guy, with a day job and a family to look after — albeit one with a difference. Through nothing more than sheer hard graft, relentless passion for his chosen motorsport discipline of drifting, and being an all-round good bloke, he’s become a local figurehead for the sport, and a name recognized throughout New Zealand and beyond. So, how does a regular guy like Fanga end up in possession of a money-can’t-buy competition car like the 2017 Ford Mustang RTR Spec 5-D you see here? If you ask him, it’s a case of the old ‘right place, right time, right people’. As he explains it, “I’d been looking at getting into a
new Ford Mustang, but I didn’t want to have to fab up custom arms and spend ages dialling it in, like with the Commodore.” With more than 15 years in professional drifting, Fanga had reached the peak of what was realistically achievable for him, his FDC Motorsport team, and handful of dedicated sponsors. However, as someone who is always looking to push himself, he hoped to step his game up even further, and that meant factory backing — far easier said than done. What better time for Sam Bakalich and the team at CTB Performance to suddenly enter the frame? The Auckland-based Ford specialists had been looking at becoming New Zealand agents for RTR, and Fanga was looking for a new platform to go racing in. Now, RTR — which stands for ‘Ready to Rock’ — is the brand associated with top American drifter Vaughn Gittin Jr, whose radical Mustangs have carved up both the Formula Drift championship and the internet alike, thanks to his loose, tyreshredding shenanigans. Vaughn’s Formula Drift comp cars have been built and developed by expat-Kiwi Ian Stewart’s North Carolina– based Autosport Dynamics (ASD) — which you may recognize as the builders of Ken Block’s ‘Hoonicorn’ Mustang — and the laid-back fella from Whangarei found himself on a fast-track into this realm of elite-level motorsport.
“Sam got on the phone to Ford Performance in the USA, and told them what we were planning on doing, and Ford Performance got on the phone to Ian Stewart,” Fanga explains. “Sam had been wanting to be the RTR agent for New Zealand for a number of years, and, next minute, Ian Stewart is giving him a call and saying, ‘Hey, I heard you guys are doing this and that — looks like I need to make a trip’. I guess the best way to explain it is that FDC just did a quantum leap!” That quantum leap began with the acquisition of a brand-new 2017 Ford Mustang GT, which was driven to CTB Performance, pulled apart, and, in just eight weeks, rebuilt into a fire-breathing monster filled with Ford Performance go-fast goods — and that’s just the baby car. While it packs nearly 670hp thanks to its supercharged Coyote mill, that ‘activation car’ is mainly to be used for a few events here and there, and loads of practice days, fan rides, and sponsor days — basically to give back to those who support him; Fanga’s an expert at putting his fans and sponsors first. However, it’s where the actual competition side of things is concerned that the real quantum leap has been made. Ian Stewart’s involvement saw an ASD-built 2017 Ford Mustang RTR Spec 5-D make its way to New Zealand — more specifically, the actual three-wheeling comp machine piloted by Vaughn Gittin Jr in the Formula Drift series. Very little remains of the 2017 Ford Mustang shell beneath it all; it now wears a full suit of easily replaced RTR Spec 5-D carbon-fibre armour. If you think the carbon-clad exterior is wild, just you wait to see what’s beneath it. Power — almost 900hp worth of it — comes from an all-alloy Roush Yates