If you think you’ve heard the name Classic Recreations before, you probably have heard about their Shelby continuation cars.

Villain was built in collaboration with Centerforce.

Company founder Jason Engel and his talented crew of car builders and technicians have spent more than ten years bringing high performance, custom-built vehicles to the market, including their award-winning Shelby Mustangs.

Most of their cars have been built-to-order, taking thousands of hours to complete. Each car they have turned out has been something that many dream about, and fewer get to behold.

Showing up at the Centerforce booth at SEMA this year, Classic Recreations was back with something new – in both car and company. CR Supercars, in collaboration with Centerforce, introduced Villain – the first of the company’s new turn-key musclecars, combining classic beauty with raw power.

Villain is a custom built 1968 Mustang Fastback that breaks the mold and brings modern Mustang power and technology to the classic shape of the early fastback, and puts power and beauty together again in a package that can be ordered from CR Supercars.

Villain is a tribute to Bill J. Hays, who founded Centerforce Clutches in 1958, first developing the weight system to increase clamping force, and to keep the diaphragms from sticking over center.

Hays was also awarded for other designs such as the dual friction design. Sadly, Mr. Hays passed away in December, 2013, but his legacy lives on at Centerforce.

Unlike most of the custom, one-off cars seen at SEMA, CR Supercars is building these cars per customer order, and Villain is the first model to come from this new venture. However, even though this custom car began life as a 1968 Mustang, that’s where the pony stops and the Villain begins.

The interior is built for the driver, because the car is meant to be driven.

The car is stripped to a bare metal shell and then composite body panels are crafted by CR Supercars and the body transformation begins. In addition to the 3D mold-making technology, there are a few carbon fiber pieces that help dress up the trim on the Mustang and all of this is put together to reduce the weight and provide better aerodynamics across the sweeping lines.

Each car spends about 2,500 man hours being massaged and customized, with hand-rubbed paint and an interior that gets hand-stitched. The car gets the full treatment, and inside the  driver is treated to Procar seats, a Kicker audio system, and an Old Air climate control system to make things nice and cozy in the cockpit. Steering is handled with a Detroit Speed Engineering (DSE) rack and pinion and a Flaming River tilt column. Then the real fun begins: the powertrain is installed and the Villain is brought to life.

Under the hood is a 475 horsepower Ford Racing 5.0 DOHC Coyote engine, mated to the Tremec T-56 six-speed transmission using Centerforce’s DYAD DS multi-disc clutch to transfer that power through the gears. That power gets to the ground through a fully adjustable DSE/JRi coilover system at all four corners, with a QUADRAlink 4-link rear suspension. A Strange Engineering 9-inch rearend with 3.89 gears puts the power down to the rear wheels.

Forgelines wrapped with wide BF Goodrich tires lets the Villain strut its stuff.

While the JVC audio keeps the sounds inside the car at an audible level, outside of the car is a different story. DSE long tube stainless headers pull spent gases from the engine and a dual 2.5-inch mandrel bent exhaust system with Magnaflow mufflers make that sweet music to the rear of the car.

To keep the canyon-carving Mustang headed into the turns and hitting the apex just right, DSE’s Aluma-Frame front suspension system fitted with Corvette-based control arms fit the bill. Super wide Grip Equipped Series Forgeline wheels are sitting at the corners, with 18×9.5-inch up front and 18×12-inch out back.

What else can you put on these wide wheels other than equally wide 275/35 and 335/30 BF Goodrich tires that keep Villain stuck to the pavement. Getting the Villain to cool its heels after a spirited attack in the canyons is a set of Wilwood six-piston calipers clamping down on 14-inch brake rotors.

The six-point cage protects the driver, and helps keep the chassis stiff in the twisties.

But even with all of these components, the chassis is only as good as Ford made it way back when they never expected to see these modifications, so CR Supercars creates a fully reinforced superstructure to keep the body from twisting and shouting. DSE sub frame connectors and a six point roll bar keep it firm when the front end starts to hit the curves in the road.

We hear that Engel is going to be making the rounds in Southern California with Villain, and if we get a chance to get behind the wheel we’ll bring it back to you with our impressions of this monster of a Mustang. As the literature says, “Say hello to the Bad Guy” and Villain is certainly a bad guy that we’d love to hang around with for a weekend, hitting the streets and raising some hell.

There are lots of custom cars from the SEMA show that you can’t get your hands on, but Villain isn’t one of them. If you’re interested in purchasing one of these turn-key Mustangs to add to your stable, you can get a hold of CR Supercars from their website and bring the Villain to your quiet little town. We all need a reason to raise a little hell now and again, and Villain makes for a great co-conspirator. Meanwhile, get another look at Villain below.