Italian firm restomods classic `68 Mustang
Carlo Borromeo prefers the projects tackled by his design firm — Milan-based Borromeodesilva, which he co-founded in 2011 with friend Fabio de Silva — to be picked out by its clients. Eccentrica Cars had already set its sights on the Lamborghini Diablo when Borromeo got involved, for example; Nardone had picked out the Porsche 928 before hiring the Italians on.
“I don't want to get too lost in what I like or not,” reasons Borromeo, who works as the company's creative director.
But over the past few years, the 41-year-old has secretly been chipping away at a passion project — not another European sports car, but an icon of American muscle. This is Borromeodesilva's STL1, a radical Baja-inspired take on the 1968 Ford Mustang. “The Mustang is the muscle car. It's the first, it's the most meaningful, and at the end of the day, it's the No. 1 muscle car,” Borromeo told Classic Driver. “We don't care what Vin Diesel has to say.”
Borromeo didn't hone in on the Mustang as muse just because it was an icon, though. There's a personal connection: when he moved to San Francisco to study design at 20 years old, Borromeo immediately took to ebay to get something with a stick shift, settling on a `68 Mustang fastback out of Texas.
He ended up driving the car to New York, and then in 2008 headed from there to his mother's home in Buenos Aires, where it remains today. It was the incredible landscapes he traversed during that epic journey that got him thinking of his ideal Mustang — and its off-road capabilities.
The STL1 — the name is an allusion to Sylvester Stallone, the “Italian Stallion” — is that ideal Mustang, or “Fastback Mustang Safari,” as Borromeo calls it. There's some obvious major changes — you might notice the roof has been removed in favour of a trick roll cage.
But Borromeodesilva specializes in the subtle tweaks that are hard to single out but make a world of difference. Here they include a sectioned body that helps increase ground clearance, as well as bobbed front and rear overhangs for better approach and departure angles.
The wheel openings have been squared off, there's integrated fog lights in the grille and one of the three tri-bar tail lights has been turned into an exhaust outlet. Inside there's a new digital dashboard and seats.
The underpinnings have been thoroughly gone through, with upgrade including high-performance billet coilovers and tubular upper and lower control arms front and rear.
Drilled and slotted 11-inch brakes up front work with 10.5inch inboard-mounted units out back to arrest the STL1. Under the hood, Borromeo imagines a 5.0-litre Coyote V8 reworked with a host of enhancements to turn out around 444 horsepower and 380 pound-feet of torque.
“Imagines” is a key word, here: the Borromeodesilva STL1 has not yet been wrought in real metal, and for now exists only as a set of renders. The firm plans to build one prototype, and if the demand is there, follow it up with a small production run.
It's the first, it's the most meaningful, and at the end of the day, it's the No. 1 muscle car.