’63 Falcon And ’14 Mustang GT Merge To Create The Falcon GT

Everyone knows the story of the Road Runner and the Coyote. Poor Wile E. Coyote never caught that crafty bird and suffered accordingly. But no one ever asked what would happen if the Coyote and a Falcon got together. Florida’s Dean Varnadore, a sheetmetal fabricator and craftsman, did exactly that: He took a wrecked 2014 Mustang GT, cut everything out, grabbed the engine and six-speed manual gearbox, and combined it with a ‘63 Falcon Sprint. The result is the world first (only?) Falcon GT.

This was no simple engine swap. Dean sliced, diced, and julienned the floor of the modern ponycar and meticulously fashioned it into the Falcon. Everything, including the steering wheel, instrument panel, seats and electronics, now calls the ’60’s compact home.

He fabricated his own frame and front and rear suspensions, dropped in the S197 Mustang’s drivetrain, and then went to work on the body. The result is simply spectacular. It looks classic, but turns corners with the best of them and with only 2,900 lbs. to move around, it accelerated like a modern muscle machine. And Dean simply drives the wheels off of it.

This proves that had the Coyote and Falcon joined forces in the ’60s, that Road Runner would have been in a heap of trouble. 

“I cut the floor pan out of a 2014 Mustang. 
So all my seats and part of the firewall, all my pedals, everything, I plugged back into that. I cut the body off the Falcon and built a full square tube frame with a roll cage,” Dean said. “I put the floor pan off the Mustang in there, and then I was able to use the Mustang dash, everything out of the new Mustang, and we’re just using the body off the Falcon pretty much, but it’s all full-frame car on coilovers.”

But it goes deeper than that. 

“I used all the wiring harness, the computer, all the brakes — everything out of the Mustangs — so everything that was in that Mustang is working on this car: traction control, cruise control, the trunk opener, the wipers with intermittent, you know, everything. If the Mustang did it, it does in this Falcon.”

Truly One-Of-A-Kind

With Dean’s skill set, there was no thought to using much of the original Mustang. 

“I’m a sheetmetal fabricator. I’d rather build it than try to make it back to stock,” said the owner of Dean’s Custom Sheet Metal in Plant City, Florida. 

The four-link with coilovers? He made it himself. The rack-and-pinion and front control arms are off the shelf race car pieces. The front spindles started like as early 1970s Granada parts. 

“I took a Granada spindle, and cut the spindle off of it, and got the spindle off of the Mustang’s MacPherson strut. 
And then with two boats, boated together, and then I welded all of it together. It’s all one spindle now where I use upper control arms without the MacPherson struts.”

One of his employees, Mike Pogo, handled all the wiring. That was outside Dean’s comfort level. Even the anti-lock brakes off the Mustang are functional.

Remarkably, this is the first street car he’s ever built. Before this, it was all race cars. He decided he wanted a Coyote engine, so he bought the wrecked Stang, but he had no other parts. Then after looking it over to see what pieces he could use, he decided the answer was, “everything.” It made sense. Then he wouldn’t have to buy anything, like the seats, console, etc. He did have to narrow the Mustang’s rear, but other than that, he had the skills to make the project happen. 

“I never measured the wheelbase of either car. 
And I said, ‘Well, let me see how much I want to cut the driveshaft,’ and it bolted right in perfectly. Didn’t have to cut it or lengthen it — nothing. He did have to notch the doors to fit the dash in there, but that was about it.

The 2014 Mustang GT 5.0 made 420 net horsepower and 390 lb.-ft. of torque. The stock exhaust manifolds were retained, but the cats got the boot. The car was then tuned, so horsepower is definitely up, but he’s happy with the power-to-weight ratio and the acceleration. Dean, shockingly enough, fabricated his own exhaust system.

“It’s got all stainless steel exhausts with the cutouts. 
I made all of that, made the NASCAR-style exhaust out of the side,” he related, though he did admit to using Borla mufflers for the 2.5-inch exhaust. “Everything here we fabricate. This car never left here. 
I’ve got a guy from St. Lucide that painted it right here. It never left my shop to be painted or anything. 
I built this whole car in exactly one year.’

Dean said it is a comfortable car to drive and it handles like Mustang — only better. He takes it everywhere, including the Tail of the Dragon in North Carolina. He ran the entire tail both ways, cutouts open the whole way. That’s 318 turns in 11 miles one-way, race fans. 

”It echoed off them mountains pretty good,” Dean boasted. 

The Falcon, Ford’s original import-fighting compact car, was a fine piece of economical transportation, but it never competed in the performance arena. Yes, the 260 V8-powered Sprint was a sprightly vehicle, but it didn’t make a living chasing down GTOs or even Mustangs. This proves that had the Coyote and Falcon joined forces in the ’60s, that Road Runner would have been in a heap of trouble.