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This 1964 ½ Mustang started out as a simple, six-cylinder, four-speed car that was sold for only $250. At the time of its sale in 1975, when it was just over a decade old, nobody knew that it would someday turn into the stunning show car that it is today. That $250 purchase was made by Gary Munsch’s father, Ed Munsch. He drove past the car frequently as it lay dormant in a carport and one day he decided to stop by and ask about it. The woman that owned it told him that her husband had passed away, that it was a 4-speed and she didn’t want to drive a stick, and that she only wanted $250 for it. Sold.
The car is significantly different from what it looked like when Ed first bought it.
“He put some jumper cables on it and drove it home,” Gary told us. “When my dad brought the Mustang home, he said I should buy it from him. It had bucket seats and was much nicer, with only 48,000 miles, so I bought it off of him and have owned it ever since.”
The Beginnings of the Fast One
I had the fastest car from our school. -Gary Munsch
It was in 1978 that Gary got the personalized plate that says “FAST 1,” and that is what it has had ever since. A lot of local people are familiar with it by that name and know of the car. Gary even kept renewing the plate while the Mustang was in progress so that they wouldn’t lose it. They almost lost the plate number though, when they let the registration lapse and someone else requested it, but luckily they received a notice before it was too late and were able to pay the registration fee before they lost “FAST 1.”
The Fast 1 name is on both the valve covers and license plates.
In 1983 he had a local guy, Tom Casias, paint the car. It was running the low twelves at the time and Gary decided to take it down to California for the Street Machine Nationals. He and his wife loaded up the car and trailered it down there where they were immediately approached by Fabulous Mustangs Magazine and they asked to do an article on it. And we mean immediately, as he was unloading it off the trailer when they approached him about it.
He did a burnout and as the photographer was taking pictures a cop pulled up behind them. The cop yelled at him, but didn’t give him a ticket, and the photographer was snapping shots the whole time. The photo of the cop yelling at Gary ended up in a few magazines with the caption: “Heavy duty burnouts get you into heavy duty trouble.”
The Rebuild
I just decided to see how nice of a car that I could make it. -Gary Munsch
This is a snapshot of what the car looked like in its prior state. This was during the first stages of its second life.
Gary spent a lot of time figuring out how he wanted to do it. “So many people go in one direction and end up sidetracked,” Gary explained. “They don’t think about what it’s going to take time-wise and money-wise, and end up with something they aren’t happy with. I told myself that if there is anything on this car I don’t like, it’s my own fault.” This was Gary’s car and he was going to do it his way. “Not everybody will like my car,” Gary continued, “but I like my car.” Sometimes, that’s all that matters, really.
Just a few examples of some fabrication work that was done to the car: the rear wheel tubs, the air intake, the transmission hump, and the trunk mounted battery.
The color choice came from a calculated plan to get the right color for the end goal. Gary drove around town at different times of day in different lights until he found the perfect colors. “I envisioned the paint job years before I did it.” Gary explained. “When I told people the color, even my wife, they’d say they weren’t sure about it, but I told them: It’s going to look badass, just you wait.” The paint job definitely turned out to be badass.
The detail in the paint is pretty amazing. The stripes don't end at the door edge like most do, and check out the ghosted horse in the stripe (far right).
Gary taught himself how to fabricate so that he could get the car to turn out exactly how he wanted. Together with his son Shaun who went to welding school, they did pretty much everything on the car. They custom made the teardrop air box to match the hood, the front apron, the spoilers, and so many other little details on the car that it would be hard to mention them all. “You just try making stuff and never give up,” Gary said. “I watched a lot of the car TV shows and learned some of how they did it. I researched more of it and then started hammering it out.”
The car sure looks good at Griot’s Garage down in Tacoma, Washington.
There are two ways to have a car like this, you can write a check or you can learn how to do it. -Gary Munsch
The Outcome
After all is said and done, the Fast 1 is a street driven drag car that runs a solid 10.58 second quarter mile at 126.66 miles per hour. It is an impressive feat to achieve a time like that on the first night out, in street trim, on pump gas, and with a naturally aspirated motor.
Not just a performer, this is motor is ready for hood-up show action!
Gary built the engine in his garage with his friend Arlyn Staiger. It’s a 1969 351 cubic-inch Windsor block that is bored and stroked out to 418 cubic-inches and makes use of a Scat stroker kit. He uses an Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake and heads, Demon 920cfm carburetor, and had the heads ported by Keithcraft racing. The ignition system has also been improved with a Mallory electronic distributor and an MSD programmable 6AL2 control module. All of the power from the engine is transferred through a unique, Jeffco four-speed transmission and into a Ford 9-inch rearend.
We could really look at that engine all day long - not to mention that reared! It's cleaner than most cars are.
Gary did a lot to improve the rolling stock on his Mustang as well. The front clip is a Heidts Mustang II suspension kit, the rear is an Art Morrison sub-frame with ladder bars, he used QA1 adjustable coil overs on all four corners, and Wilwood disc brakes all the way around.
The interior is all custom with seats from Pro Car, Auto-Meter gauges, a removable steering wheel, and the sidebars for the roll cage are all removable so that you don’t have to mess with them being in the way if you don’t plan on running on the track. He also built the roll cage behind the dash so it doesn’t stand out as much. The rest of the interior is all done with carbon-fiber vinyl.
While Gary did about much of the interior work, Gary’s friend Kevin McDonald did the padded dash and covered the rear seat side panels. Gary’s oldest son, Chris, helped during the entire project with disassembly and the re-assembly, as well as taking it to car shows and Drag racing the car. Gary’s wife Lori also enjoys the car shows and cruising in the Fast 1, as well as detailing the car for the next outing. Gary says that “having a shared love for this hobby is an important factor in his relationship!”
All-in-all, Gary has built himself one impressive car. It’s the kind of thing you really have to see to appreciate. Between all of the ghosted horses in the paint, the LED backlit horses in the engine bay, and the custom cooler and helmet that he designed to match his car, the effort and attention to detail on this is clear. Not to mention the fact that the undercarriage of this car is cleaner and shinier than the exterior of some show quality builds that we’ve seen. Enjoy more photos of Gary’s Fast 1 in the gallery below.
