Veteran radial-tire racer Ziff Hudson debuted a ride like no other in the Pro 275 class at this weekend’s DuckX Productions No Mercy 16 at South Georgia Motorsports Park.

After selling off his previous Fox body Mustang and a Corvette that left him unsatisfied, Hudson found himself circling back to what he knows best: Fox body Mustangs. “I’m a Mustang guy at heart,” he says. “That’s just who I am. I tried something different with that Corvette, and it didn’t feel right. I was already working on this new car, and once I decided I didn’t like the ’Vette, it got serious real quick.”

Photos courtesy Allison Menscer/Menscer Motorsports

What started as an ASAG (All Steel All Glass) dedicated car pivoted over to a Pro 275 combination. Built by Teddy Houser Race Cars, the Fox body is as trick as anything in the class. The chassis is a double-frame-rail 25.3 with every bell and whistle imaginable. “It’s a really nice-built car,” as Hudson describes it. “It’s got a Hammer Concepts full floater rear housing, all Strange Evolution brakes, and every bolt you can imagine is titanium. Cameron Johnson did the titanium A-arms, steering column, everything. It’s steel roof and quarters, but has Motor City doors and front end, and with all of the lightweight parts, it’s a really light car.”

Under the hood, Hudson has taken a calculated new direction. Gone are the big turbos always found on his past builds. In their place sits a ProCharger-boosted 4.600-inch bore-space Noonan small-block with Hemispherical cylinder heads. “It was actually a motor I bought from Larry Roach that was his backup motor, it had never been run. Kevin Mullins and I went through it and changed it around, put our cam in it, our piston combo, just the way I like to do things. It’s billet block, billet heads, Hemi-style, it looks just like a 4.9 bore-space engine, but shorter.”

Hudson chose a smaller F-3R ProCharger in a deliberate move to capitalize on class weight breaks. “They came up with a weight break for the smaller blower, so I built around that. Between the small block and the small blower, I’m light. In Pro 275, I’ve got to be 2,400 pounds, and I’m around 2,460 right now. If I were a little smaller myself, I’d make it, but I can’t stay out of the gym,” he laughs. “I’ll get that 50 pounds out one way or another. If not, they’ll probably give it back to me in lead after the first weekend,” he adds.

The combination sits on a full set of Menscer shocks, including Mark Menscer’s brand-new billet strut setup. A Rossler Turbo 400 transmission and Cameron’s torque converter handle the power, while FuelTech electronics manage every aspect of the car’s operation. “It’s all FuelTech, injectors, FT Spark, FT600 ECU, all the sensors, shock sensors, everything.” Hudson, who’s long tuned his own cars, still relies on Mullins’ dyno and expertise for development. “Me and Kevin work hand-in-hand,” he says. “I do my own tuning at the track, but we dyno together a lot. When I come up with stupid ideas, we put them on the dyno and see if they work.”

On its exterior, Hudson’s new machine sports one of the most striking paint schemes we’ve ever seen, with a black-to-rose fade that defies simple description. “All I can tell you is Mario Johnson called me and said he wanted to paint my new car,” Ziff Hudson explains. “He picked it up from Teddy’s shop, took it to a guy named Robert down in Columbia, and four weeks later, the car was done. I never even told what color it was. I didn’t have a clue what it looked like.”

The result, he admits, took some getting used to. “At first, I was skeptical. I told him no red, no purple, and that’s what I got,” Hudson says, laughing. “But it’s wild. Pictures don’t do it justice. It starts black at the bottom, then fades up into that color. I don’t even know what color it is. It looks completely different depending on the light. It’s a Mustang, but nobody’s ever seen a color like it. Mario told me we had to do something different, and he nailed it.”

The car made its first shakedown runs at Rockingham earlier this week, going to half-track cleanly on both attempts. “Everything worked, the wiring, transmission, brakes, chutes,” Hudson says. “I’ve got to tighten up the converter, but it went straight and smooth. We’re headed to Georgia, we’ll make the converter change, and we’ll be ready to make a full rip tomorrow. The goal is to go bottom 3.60s right out of the gate.”

After he debuts the car in Pro 275, Hudson plans to run it at radial events throughout the winter. “I’m staying radial,” he says firmly. “I’ve been hooked on that tire since the day Mickey Thompson came out with it. I’ve tested it since day one. I’m just a radial man, always have been, always will be.”

With two years of build time, a heaping dose of titanium and billet, and a wild engine combination to match its flanks, this new piece is quite the statement. With it, Hudson is more dangerous than ever, whether that’s cracking the competition or breaking necks to catch a glimpse of it.