We have seen our fair share of cool project vehicles. While most of them capture our attention are fast, powerful, and attractive, Harvey Hutch’s 1963 F100 stopped us in our tracks for another reason. It was the truck’s little bit country looks contrasting with its little-bit-rock-’n-roll powerplant that had us scrambling for our cameras.

As it turns out, Harvey’s project was a mechanical 12-step program to keep up running on the straight and narrow, rather than constantly chasing a broken down import meant to go slideways.

“I named the truck Taylor Swift because one of her songs says “we are never ever getting back together,” Harvey said. “The truck project was to keep me from relapsing and getting back into drifting, which is another story. I had sold my drift car and wanted something more streetable, something I can enjoy at any time. Drifting became a black hole to me, so Taylor Swift keeps me from going back down that rabbit hole. During this project I also got into building bicycles and ended up with a match called Taylor Scwhinn.”

Rather than writing a break-up song about this drifting ex, Harvey decided to embark on a break-up build bearing the pop-country songstress’ moniker. The trick was finding the right vehicle. Choosing something that was diametrically opposed to his import drifter.

Street Machinery

“The purpose of this truck is to be a well-rounded street machine — something that’s cool, that I can take to the grocery store, take to the track, mess around on the street, take to the car show, take it on road trips, oh and of course, do massive burnouts,” Harvey explained. “I wanted a truck because I’m a working class truck guy,” Harvey explained. “Luckily a friend of mine had this one buried in his garage. I wanted to buy it, but the truck ended up with someone else and then he was selling it. I ended up working out a deal and traded another car I had for it, so it all worked out.”

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To help him break up with a finicky drift car, Harvey Hutch built Taylor Swift — a beat-up farm truck with a modern drivetrain. He even built a matching bicycle project called Taylor Schwinn.

“I wanted the presence of the truck to be very traditional,” he added. “I want to you look at this truck from the outside and think that it’s just another old, shitty farm truck, hence the steel wheels, classic gauges, bench seat, etc, but underneath I want it to be a like modern car.”

If you aren’t familiar with Harvey, until recently he spent his days at Power by the Hour in Boynton Beach, Florida, helping create some amazingly powerful machines. These days he uses his welding torch to create works of art, furniture, and home décor from scrapped mechanical parts at Hutch’s Welding. He will also fabricate automotive parts for your custom build. In short, he is great at building things and he put those skills to use constructing this 1963 F100 project, but a modern powertrain was a key part of the plan.

Coyote Swap Them All

“Reliability and comfort is my concern. I’ve had a car that I ended up destroying by turning it into a race car, it started out as street car and I gutted the whole thing and it ended up being a trailer queen. The only way I could enjoy it was to trailer it a track, which got old fast, but that’s another story,” Harvey confessed. “With the reliability in mind I needed a modern powerplant, so why not a Coyote, with twin turbos? I’m a straight-up turbo guy, and since I aided in the development of the Fluid Turbo Concepts kit, it was a no brainer.”

While the idea of Coyote swaps is becoming more pervasive, especially in older Mustangs, making this move in an early F100 presented a few challenges, which Harvey deftly overcame.

“The engine is a 2014 Mustang GT Coyote equipped with the PBH swap brackets, including OEM A/C, power steering, and a Coyote alternator,” Harvey said. “It is run by a Ford Performance Control Pack PCM and Lund Racing tuning. While the Fluid Turbo Concepts Mustang GT turbo kit hot side — which are the manifolds and downpipes designed for a 2010-2014 GT — the rest is a Harvey Hutch special with a custom cold side, intercooler, and piping.”

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The raw interior and vintage gauges belie the modern driveline underneath.

Interesting Underpinnings

Mounting this combination in the front of the truck, required a bit of creative thinking, so Harvey chose a more modern front subframe, but not one from a Mustang.

“I did the Crown Vic front clip because I wanted a modern OEM suspension, disc brakes, and power steering, and with reliability in mind. I wanted easy serviceability, with this thing being a driver in mind if I ever need a part away from home I wanted to able to source it from a local auto parts store,” Harvey said.

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Harvey hopes to upgrade the wheels one day. However, we are digging on his current combo of stock 2003 Ford Crown Victoria 15-inch steelies up front and 11-inch-wide Mob Steel hoops out back.

Carrying that easily serviceable theme, Harvey selected a familiar 8.8-inch rearend out back. Rather than a Mustang unit though, he opted for one of Ford’s SUV axles.

“The rearend is from an Explorer. I went with a 8.8 because I am familiar with them, we have proven them to work,” he said. “We even offer a built PBH 8.8, which is in the plans for the future. Also they are narrow so you can put a deep-lip wheel behind it.”

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The interior does offer an example of Harvey’s side hustle though. Hutch’s Welding creates welded works of art from mechanical leftovers. A sample is the chain-link cup holders inside Taylor.

Between the Mustang engine and the Explorer rear is a manual transmission from one of Ford’s top-shelf offerings — the Shelby GT500. This rugged six-speed manual fit the mission of the truck.

“I went with the manual transmission because I think it’s more fun for a street car,” Harvey said. “To me there’s nothing like banging gears, and a hot rod needs to bang gears. I went with the GT500 Tremec TR-6060 because it was the best fit, it bolted right up, was able to relocate the shifter and have it fixed mounted and, of course, it’s stout transmission that is going to hold up to the abuse I am going to put to it.”

That abuse included doing a massive burnout shortly after the truck came together. Then Harvey put the truck’s streetability to the test by driving it to the NMRA Spring Break Shootout in Bradenton, Florida, earlier this year. That’s where we met up with him and snapped a few shots because it turned out so cool. As great as it is in these shots, Harvey is not quite done with it.

“The truck’s frame is notched and prepped for Air Ride and to be able to lay frame,” he added. “Future plans include Air Ride, air conditioning, matching front wheels, a stereo, interior, and maybe paint. Paint is last on my mind because, like I said before, I want it to ride good and be good before I worry too much about how it looks. Nothing is worse than a nice car with shiny paint broken down on the side of the road.”

We’d have to agree with Harvey on that one. Plus, there is just something so cool about this beat-up truck packing the power to make Harvey forget about his high-strung, unreliable drifter.