I knew right away that this was the car that I wanted. It had a distinct look. The lights, the stance of it. Just everything about it excited me. It was on my mind for 20 years until I had the opportunity to get one.”
- Hassane El-Khoury
The dream car
That opportunity came in 2008, when El-Khoury came across an ad from a student in Seattle who was selling a late-1960s Mustang coupe. The car wasn’t running, the fuel pump was shot, and the mostly gray paint was covered with green moss from the moist Seattle air. “I bought the car for $2,500 and started fixing it right away,” El-Khoury recalls. “I smelled like gasoline for probably a week.” Fixing the car at night in his apartment complex carport with tools rented from Auto Zone, El-Khoury soon got his Mustang running. “It was my dream car, and at last I had it.”
El-Khoury is actively involved in the design of the car and management of the project. “Early morning before 7:00 a.m., I actually write code. It helps me wake up with something I love to do. I feel like I’m already halfway through my day when the work day starts. It’s a great energy boost.”
Teamwork makes the dream work
A team from India, Germany, and the U.S. worked nights and weekends on the project. The body and mechanical work was performed by Muscle Car Restorations, Inc., an automotive restoration firm in Wisconsin. And a consultant in California worked with El-Khoury on the interior design, and shipping 3D printed parts to the body shop for placement in the car. The car was painted gun-metal gray with red accents and features a supercharger-infused, 785-horsepower Coyote Crate engine, six-speed manual transmission, and extra-wide rear tires. It is fully SCCA-race-car-compliant with a full roll cage all the way from the engine compartment to the trunk. El-Khoury says he plans to race the car on a track at some point, but not competitively.
I knew right away that this was the car that I wanted. It had a distinct look. The lights, the stance of it. Just everything about it excited me. It was on my mind for 20 years until I had the opportunity to get one.”