It might be every Ford guy’s dream to have his wife look at a Mustang and tell him she wants that car. That might get even better when your wife wants an 8-second Fox-body, formerly a high-profile magazine project car, once owned by the legendary former voice of the NMRA, Dr Jamie Meyer, and wheeled by one of the original Super Street Outlaw legends Carlo Catalanotto.

A now old-school Vortech X-trim Mondo supercharger feeds non-intercooled boost straight to the long-runner Trick-Flow intake.

“We saw the car for sale at Joliet, and my wife Sheri said she wanted it,” says Dave Zimmerman. Dave’s name should be familiar to many of you as he’s also the owner of Team Z Motorsports, a company dedicated to making Mustangs and other cars go faster at the track. With an old school Vortech X-trim, and 347 cubic-inch engine on board, the black Fox-body coupe proved to be a little more than what Mrs Z wanted to take on. So Dave took the reins and began transforming and updating the car, since it was built well over a decade ago and in need of some newer hardware to bring up to today’s standards.

Of course the suspension received the full Team Z treatment front to back. Zimmerman also worked with Strange Engineering on developing some new, custom valved, double adjustable rear shocks that he could offer to customers. These shocks for “Blackie” as this Mustang is called, mount in the stock location. “I wanted to develop a shock package for our customers, and this car has been the test bed for that,” says Zimmerman. The rear suspension also features Team Z’s double adjustable Strip Series control arms.

Late last summer Zimmerman took the car out to the track, with some suspension tuning he managed to improve the 60 foot times from 1.26 to 1.19 seconds. However, the tired A4 block, a relic from the performance days of the late 1990s couldn’t take the abuse any longer. It split, literally in the middle, and Zimmerman parked the car until he had time to work on it over the winter.

This past winter the car has been rewired, and it’s also been converted to Big Stuff 3 fuel injection from the ancient first-gen DFI that was on the car when it was purchased. A new 347 wearing Ford Racing Z heads was assembled, and it still wears the Vortech X-trim Mondo supercharger, that has proven it’s still valid even in today’s world.

Zimmerman also updated the rear end of the car, swapping out the 31-spline axles for new 35-spline units, and putting 9-inch ends on the housing to negate the need for C-clip eliminators. The car is still not mini-tubbed, running factory wheel houses. It wears 15×9 inch rear wheels and Mickey Thompson 275 drag radials.

It also still has the 70/30 struts in the front, and the old powerglide transmission that it was equipped with when it was originally constructeds. There’s also no intercooler, and with ZImmerman behind the wheel the car is tipping the scales at 3,160 pounds. “The idea was to demonstrate that you don’t have to spend a fortune on a car to improve your 60-foot times,” says Zimmerman.

So what about Sherri, the wife that wanted the car to begin with. Zimmerman told us that Mrs Z has taken a few turns behind the wheel for burnouts, but “She’s pretty happy to be crew-chief and race manager right now for us,” he says. So at least for the moment, the reins to Blackie will remain in Mr Z’s hands.

Zimmerman says they’ve been documenting the changes and progress of Blackie, and that when work and schedules permit they hit the track with the car about twice a month. Right now the car is still being grudge raced and Zimmerman was reluctant to give us full time-slip data, although he says that information will be released -eventually. He was able to tell us that the car is knocking out a mind blowing 1.17 60-foot time. We can do a little math and start throwing guesses at where the car should run given it’s starting line performance, however we’ll have to wait until Mr Z releases that information publicly to be sure. Until then, Blackie will no doubt be making some waves as it races, and Zimmerman will be continuing to refine and tune the suspension, which ultimately translates into better products and information for his customers as Blackie is a true example of racing what you sell. For more info on Team Z products check out their web-site and you can follow Blackie at the Team Z Facebook Page.