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Photo Credits: Joey Richardson

Australian born start-up expert, Tim Allen, has loved the looks of the classic Mustang ever since he was a little kid. Relocated to the U.S. at the age of five, Allen has fond memories of his father hauling him around town in a 1971 Ford Mustang 429 Super Cobra Jet. Being that his old man, Phil Allen, was a master bodywork specialist, there was no shortage of badass classic cars in the driveway back then, further encouraging Tim’s infatuation with modified machinery.

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Tim Allen's 1965 Mustang has seen a lot of mods, but it also retains many of the classic design touches that pony car enthusiasts adore. This earns the twin-charged muscle machine nods of approval from purists and performance buffs alike.

Years later, and Tim Allen had grown into a young man — a car enthusiast who had come to grips with the fact that one of his life goals was to someday build his own street car. Something that could consistently run in the 10s down a drag strip, yet still attractive enough to make it into a magazine. However, dreams such as these sometimes take quite a while to manifest, and it wasn’t until a few years ago that a ’65 Mustang on eBay would garner Tim’s attention. It was an incomplete build that looked a little rough around the edges, but it was also being offered for one hell of a sweet price. So Tim jumped at the opportunity and bought the car, sight unseen and history unknown.

“I was living in Costa Rica for the winter but I’m always on eBay looking at cars,” Tim told us. “The car was located in Pennsylvania.”

So it was bought and shipped from PA to New Orleans where Tim’s dad was living at the time. When Tim returned to the states in April of 2012, Tim and his dad got started on what started out as a simple 6-8 week project.

Needless to say, it quickly became obvious that his inexpensive little online purchase was morphing into a complete money-pit. Someone had done some questionable metal work to the rear of the vehicle, the floor pan was garbage, and the rest of the car felt like it had been haphazardly slapped together. While Tim felt dejected over his ill-advised decision, his old man thought it was quite humorous, poking fun at the misbegotten project car in his son’s possession. Nevertheless, Tim’s dad begrudgingly agreed to work on the car, in the hopes of straightening out as many mistakes as he could over the course of the next year. But when his father became quite ill, Tim’s turd of a Mustang was shelved, where it sat for damn near four years.

However, the ’65 Mustang remained in the back of Tim’s mind, all the way up until he decided that he had to see it finished, even if it meant doing so without the help of his gearhead father. This was around the time that Keith Strong from TPN ColorLab came to the rescue, despite having just announced that he refused to get “stuck in a Mustang rut.” But after some lively conversation, and the promise that Keith would do little more than prep and paint the vehicle black, a deal was struck, and the ’65 Mustang was back under the knife once more.

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A one-off, tightly tucked exhaust dumps spent fumes behind each rear wheel, while high-strength V-bands hold it all together and permit painless maintenance.

With the car safely in the hands of the guys at TPN ColorLab, Tim began to ponder what would happen to the vehicle once it was painted. It was around this time that people began asking Keith what he planned on bringing to SEMA 2019, to which he had little response. Eventually, Keith decided to ask Tim if he might be interested in having his Mustang on display at SEMA that year, which came as quite the shock to the Mustang owner. Excited, yet completely unfamiliar with the pressures of the notorious “SEMA crunch,” Tim graciously accepted the offer on the basis that Sherwin Williams would be displaying the vehicle at its booth.

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BeCool, TorqStorm, and FST products all make their mark here, giving the carbureted Cleveland motor the cooling and controlled ferocity needed to safely top the 1,000-horsepower mark.

By this point, it was mid-August of 2019, and the Mustang was still little more than a shell, completely devoid of wiring, and rudderless without any form of sponsorship. So Tim typed up a proposal letter and began cold pitching the build to potential sponsors, utilizing the fact that the car would be on display at the Sherwin Williams SEMA booth. And just like that, one sponsor after another began to throw its hat into the ring, and not just because it had a prime slot at a prestigious SEMA booth.

One of the primary reasons that so many companies agreed to collaborate on this build was due to its retro approach to performance upgrades. Instead of going with the modern Coyote swap, Tim kept things carbureted on his classic Ford Mustang, opting for a vintage 427 Cleveland V-8 engine and an equally old school 4-speed Toploader transmission. This nostalgic approach, paired with all of the historic restorations being done to the vehicle, opened the door to all forms of sponsors, two of which played significant roles in the creation of this car: aftermarket engine specialists Titus Performance and TorqStorm Superchargers.

For as robust as they were back in the day, the cast iron block of the Cleveland V-8 was not designed to withstand extreme amounts of pressure. And so Tim reached out to Titus Performance, a company known for producing reinforced aluminum Cleveland blocks which apparently can handle up to 1500 wheel horsepower. Titus Performance agreed to help with Tim’s ’65 Mustang project, but under one condition: the entire engine had to be built entirely in-house in order to guarantee that every square inch was done right, for this would be Titus Performance’s big premiere at SEMA. The last thing they wanted was the engine grenading while rolling off the trailer.

When I decided to use an aluminum Titus Performance-built 427 Cleveland in this build, the twin-supercharger setup from TorqStorm was a no-brainer. Performance-wise and aesthetically it was the knockout punch I was after! This gave me a huge power curve to top 1,000+ streetable horsepower on pump gas with A/C and power steering like a modern Mustang. – Tim Allen

But in order to get over 1,000 horsepower and almost equal amounts of torque to the crank on pump fuel, a twin-supercharger kit from TorqStorm had to first be installed. Being that TorqStorm is an expert when it comes to supercharging Cleveland motors, it was a no-brainer that they would be tapped as the blower of choice for Tim’s ’65 Mustang. When asked why he went with a twin-charger setup over a single unit, Tim laughs, and confesses that he needed to guarantee that his first SEMA build would “stand tall next to celebrity builds.”

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Outside of Jay Leno's Bronco, Tim's '65 Mustang was the only other vehicle sporting alloys from Detroit Steel Wheel Co. at SEMA 2019.

And stand tall it did, thanks to the help of Detroit Steel Wheel Co., which outfitted Tim’s Mustang with the same set of wheels as those found on Jay Leno’s Bronco, which apparently were the only other set at SEMA 2019. Sitting in the Sherwin Williams booth alongside Jesse James and Count’s Kustoms builds, Tim says that he felt equal parts enthralled and humbled. All he had ever wanted was a subtle, factory-inspired Mustang, yet there he was, full custom “Ferrari Red” leather interior and equally impressive paint on display beneath the bright Las Vegas lights.

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Almost every inch of the interior of Tim's '65 Ford Mustang is made from leather — even the headliner! Meanwhile, the door panels are a blend of GT and standard Mustang components.

Tim admits that while he can’t wait to get some wheel time with the car once winter subsides, it was the look on his dad’s face when he realized that his son had painted the car white instead of black that makes him the most giddy.

“From day one, he was adamant about not painting it black,” Tim says of his father. “He said everyone has a black Mustang, everything shows up on it, and you’ll never be able to keep it clean. This was a huge back-and-forth between us for ages, so once it went to Keith’s, I said ‘it’s going black since you’re not painting it now.’ He was sick with me when I showed him the all-black rendering. It wasn’t until we were days away from going into paint that I went to Keith with the new white/black/red paint scheme.  I thought he was going to kill me.

“What I didn’t do was tell or show my dad the new rendering with this white color scheme. I kept blowing him off when I went to the shop until it was painted, so I could surprise him.  He didn’t think it was my car when he finally saw it. It took a second before it clicked. He looked at me, said some questionable words, and we all started laughing.”

It may have been hard, not being able to finish his dream Mustang build with his old man, but now that it’s complete, and 100% street legal, we’re sure that these two will be able to create tons of memories in this twin-charged machine.

Want to see Tim’s twin-charged TorqStorm ’65 Ford Mustang in person? Thus far it is slated for appearances at Detroit Autorama, Holley Ford Fest, Good Guys Columbus, the Woodward Dream Cruise, and many more North American events this year. We get the feeling that you’ll like what you see.