Ford sold a million Mustangs within 20 months of launch, so there was never a shortage of cars to modify. Owners have been cutting, widening and rebuilding them for about six decades. The newest example is a computer-generated build from Brazil, created by 3D artist John Rendering, and it pushes the 1965 fastback further than most real-world 1965 mustang restomod projects dare.
The car is a full CGI build called the 1965 Ford Mustang V8 Restomod. Its satin black body has a chrome supercharger poking through the hood, and the fenders flare out to exaggerated proportions. The front end has no grille at all. That leaves the V8’s pulleys and hoses exposed, so the engine itself becomes the car’s face.
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Low on the nose, a cooler sits in a new valance above a deep splitter. The hollowed-out headlight buckets have been turned into ducting. At the rear, a flat spoiler blade rests on four slim stays above a carbon fiber panel. Twin exhausts exit through the center. The classic three-bar taillights remain, tinted smoked red.
A bus engine’s blower on a pony car
The chrome supercharger has a surprisingly industrial ancestor. In 1938, General Motors fitted Roots blowers to its Series 71 two-stroke diesel engines. A two-stroke has no separate intake stroke, so it needed forced air to fill its cylinders. The “71” referred to 71 cubic inches of displacement per cylinder, and the six-cylinder version became known as the 6-71.
After World War II, surplus blowers flooded the market at low prices. Drag racers and dry lakes racers began mounting them on V8s. NHRA Top Fuel dragsters still run blowers based on the same GM design, scaled up to 14-71 dimensions. John’s finned casing and triple-barrel scoop carry that lineage forward on a car that was never meant to pull a school bus.
The box-style overfenders on all four corners look more like Japanese tuner work than anything from Detroit. John’s Behance portfolio includes a 2022 Hakosuka Skyline drift car, and the same widebody approach appears here. The flat-faced arches look bolted on rather than sculpted into the body. A rocker blade runs between the wheels, and the stance sits so low that the blade nearly touches the floor.
The wheels and tires pull the car back toward the drag strip. The tires carry Goodyear Eagle lettering, and the wheels are black race units. The result is a Japanese-style body kit on American drag-style rubber, and the two combine more smoothly than the idea suggests.
What stayed the same in this 1965 mustang restomod
Underneath the modifications of this 1965 mustang restomod is the Mustang Fastback 2+2. Ford began building it on August 17, 1964, starting at $2,553. Its sloping roofline ran the cabin into one long line with the trunk, and critics compared it to the Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray and the Jaguar E-Type. The 1965 Shelby GT350 was offered only as a fastback, which made that body the performance Mustang.
Ford’s design studio under Joe Oros shaped the first-generation car, and Gale Halderman’s sketch served as the basis for the whole generation. John kept the long hood, short deck and three-bar taillights. Those cues identify the car immediately, which gives him room to alter nearly everything else.
Ken Block’s Hoonicorn is the benchmark every widebody 1965 mustang restomod gets compared against. The 845-horsepower car appeared in Gymkhana 7. ASD Motorsports, RTR and Block’s Hoonigan team spent two years building it around a 410-cubic-inch Roush Yates V8 and a Sadev all-wheel-drive gearbox. It was a notchback designed to slide sideways, inspired by DTM and WRC racers.
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John’s fastback chases a different idea, closer to a Saturday night at the drag strip. The Hoonicorn relied on rally hardware and bold livery. This car relies on satin black paint and one polished supercharger. Both are loud. They simply speak with different accents.
Every image in the set is CGI, shot in a seamless gray studio that lets the black surfaces pick up soft reflections. John’s earlier projects list Autodesk 3ds Max and Corona Renderer as his tools, and the even, diffuse lighting here fits that workflow. Black paint on a 1965 mustang restomod is hard to render convincingly, yet each crease on this car reads clearly.
The rear spoiler is the weakest detail on this 1965 mustang restomod. The flat blade on four stays runs against the fastback’s taper and looks borrowed from a modern time-attack car. A ducktail lip would follow the roofline more naturally and keep the aggressive look.
Reactions to real-world widebody Mustangs have been mixed for years. A 2012 thread on the SVTPerformance forum, started on June 29 by a member who photographed a similar car, drew replies ranging from “Ugly” to “I’m not sure if I love it or hate it.” That split is the point. A classic mustang fastback can take box flares, a missing grille and a blower through the hood, and it still reads as a Mustang from across a parking lot.
John’s car exists only as renders on Behance for now. Still, someone reading this is probably pricing out a 6-71.
H/T yankodesign.com
Frequently asked questions
Who made the CGI 1965 Mustang V8 Restomod in this article?
The CGI build was created by 3D artist John Rendering from Brazil. It has a satin black body, a chrome supercharger poking through the hood, and no front grille.
Where does this Mustang’s chrome supercharger design come from?
The blower is based on the Roots-style design General Motors fitted to its Series 71 two-stroke diesel engines in 1938. After World War II, surplus blowers were cheap, and drag and dry lakes racers began mounting them on V8s.
Why did two-stroke diesel engines need a supercharger?
A two-stroke engine has no separate intake stroke, so it needs forced air to fill its cylinders. The “71” in the Series 71 name referred to 71 cubic inches of displacement per cylinder.
What powered Ken Block’s Hoonicorn according to this article?
The 845-horsepower Hoonicorn used a 410-cubic-inch Roush Yates V8 and a Sadev all-wheel-drive gearbox. ASD Motorsports, RTR and Block’s Hoonigan team spent two years building it.
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