Glendale 2026

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Following the trend of highly modified, historically informed customs, such as the boundary-pushing Hot Rods from the Petersen Automotive Museum collection headed to <a href="https://www.mecum.com/auctions/glendale-2026/">Mecum Glendale 2026</a>, comes a car cut from a very different cloth yet driven by the same basic instinct. This wildly creative offering arrives as a <a href="https://www.mecum.com/lots/1164830/1968-ford-mustang-custom-fastback/?aa_id=752543-0">1968 Ford Mustang Custom Fastback</a>, and it may be one of the most obsessively engineered, beautifully assembled and conceptually daring Mustangs ever built.

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What began as old-school muscle has transcended any attempt at straightforward restoration. This ’68 fastback has undergone something far more ambitious in the form of a sweeping, deeply considered reimagination of the widely celebrated Ford Motor Company model.

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This otherworldly Mustang, known valiantly as “The Outlaw,” was built by Mustang Brothers as a one-of-one statement piece, and it will arrive in Glendale with approximately 200 test miles since completion. The modern-day legend has already carved its own mythology, having been featured on “Under The Hood” by PowerNation TV; being displayed at the 2024 SEMA Show; scoring a near-perfect 999 out of 1,000 points at MCACN to earn the coveted Diamond Award; and garnering praiseworthy Best of Show and Best in Class honors across multiple national Mustang and Ford events.

Yet accolades alone fail to capture the full significance of this car. To understand The Outlaw, one must first understand what the Mustang was and what it was never expected to become.

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When Ford launched the Mustang in April 1964, it wasn’t intended to be a fire-breathing cultural weapon. It was conceived by Lee Iacocca as an affordable, sporty, customizable personal car that appealed to youthful buyers and women alike. Critics dismissed it as a “secretary’s car,” while Ford promoted it as “The car to be designed by you,” emphasizing the exciting opportunity to personalize your very own ride.

Yet the Mustang carried the seeds of rebellion. Builders like Carroll Shelby quickly transformed it into a legitimate performance machine, and by 1968, the fastback had evolved into one of the most aggressive silhouettes on American roads, defined by its long hood, fast roofline and muscular haunches. What it would become in the hands of modern custom builders, however, surpassed all expectations. In the case of The Outlaw, the Mustang formula has been fundamentally rewritten.

The defining element of this highly customized build is the roof, or more precisely, what Mustang Brothers did to it. They cut it open. Not casually or recklessly, but surgically and with extraordinary attention to detail. Before the first incision, the chassis was reinforced with convertible-spec inner rockers to compensate for any structural loss.

What emerged was something entirely unexplored: a patent-pending panoramic glass roof system that transforms the fastback’s famously intimate cabin into an open, architectural space filled with natural light, delivering the openness of a convertible while preserving the fastback’s integrity.

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In a move that affirmed a deep respect for the original design, the builders retained the Mustang fastback’s central steel roof spine, the structural and visual backbone of the car. It was a calculated effort to reinterpret, not erase, the Mustang’s original form.

The distinctive roof design works in concert with another remarkable innovation: a removable interior tonneau cover inspired by the 1960s Thunderbird Sports Roadster. Finished to the same exacting standard as the rest of the interior, it transforms the rear seating area into a sculptural extension of the cabin.

With it installed, The Outlaw becomes closer to a grand touring speedster than a traditional 2+2 coupe. It feels both futuristic and sincerely embedded in Ford’s own design language, a dialog between past and present that helped define the entire build.

Then there’s the steering wheel. It’s mounted on the right side of the cabin, a bold departure that immediately signals this Mustang operates outside traditional expectations. This was not done for novelty, but to accommodate a custom polished rack-and-pinion steering system commissioned by Mustang Brothers and fabricated in Australia specifically for the car.

The conversion is executed so seamlessly that it feels factory-integrated rather than later adapted, transforming the driving experience into something even more profoundly unique than it already is. Unorthodox design facets and mechanical rewrites embraced by the Mustang Brothers, such as this right-hand pivot modification, reinforce the reality that this custom fastback is by no means confined by geography, tradition or precedent.

Under the steel hood lives a supercharged 5.4L V-8 from a 2012 Shelby GT500, a powerplant capable of producing beyond 550 HP in its factory form. Here, it breathes through custom stainless headers fabricated by Rada Race Lab and exhales through a fully hidden exhaust system that preserves the car’s visual piousness.

Backing it is a Tremec TR6060 6-speed manual transmission, one of the most respected performance gearboxes of the modern era, feeding a Big Dog 9-inch rear axle with a 3.55 ratio. The byproduct is a powertrain that fuses more than half a century of Ford performance development, translating the Mustang’s original spirit into a contemporary motorized language paraphrased for modern roads.

What truly isolates The Outlaw from other customs, though, is the totality of its engineering. The suspension system, developed by Mustangs to Fear, incorporates a C6-derived front suspension, frame stiffeners and a Watts-link rear setup designed to control lateral axle movement with unparalleled precision.

Dual adjustable shocks allow for fine-tuning of ride and handling characteristics, while Wilwood 6-piston calipers clamp massive disc brakes—11.75 inches in front and 12.80 inches at the rear—augmented by a pushbutton electronic parking brake. The chassis itself, an abstract work of art, has been reengineered to sustain performance levels that pilots of the original car could never have imagined.

Even the undercarriage reflects an uncompromising echelon of finish. It’s painted in the same Brittney Blue metallic as the exterior, accented with Wimbledon White stripes, then wet-sanded and hand-buffed to match the body it supports. Virtually every visible component has been powder coated, polished, painted or cleared, accentuating how its craftsmanship was executed with a strict, forward-thinking discipline and painstaking intent.

Visually, the car walks a precise line between reverence and reinvention. Flush-mounted front and rear glass eliminates visual interruptions, and a custom decklid integrates seamlessly with bespoke end caps and sequential LED tail lights that modernize the Mustang’s original signature without sacrificing it. The original steel rear bumper has been reshaped for a tighter fitment, while 1968 GT500KR side scoops pay homage to its performance bloodline.

One-of-a-kind Forgeline wheels—18x10 inches up front and 18x11 inches at the rear—fill the arches faultlessly, wrapped in Nitto Invo tires for road-gripping triumphs, while a polished fuel tank and custom-engraved NASCAR-style gas cap offer inspiring moments of discovery, serving as little details meant to be quietly noticed by its captivated audience rather than being boldly self-advertised.

Inside, Mustang Brothers fought the temptation to overwrite The Outlaw’s former identity. The gauges are digital but retain a factory-correct appearance, and power windows use billet handles designed to mimic the originals. A custom console integrates a custom sound system and Bluetooth connectivity without disrupting the interior’s visual cohesion, all anchored by a Ring Brothers shifter.

The seats are newly upholstered and bolstered for performance driving, yet they still preserve the character of the original car. Modern functionality here is tenfold, such as its custom air-conditioning vents, but it never overshadows the Mustang’s faithful soul.

What ultimately makes The Outlaw so enchanting is how it echoes the evolution of American car culture itself. The Hot Rodders of the 1930s through the 1950s transformed ordinary Fords into personal expressions of speed and identity, cutting, welding and experimenting to push the limits of what was possible. The Outlaw operates in that same spirit, but with modern mechanisms, surgical precision and far greater technical reach. It doesn’t attempt to recreate the 1968 Mustang Fastback; it questions what the model might have become if it had never stopped evolving.

There are restored <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang" data-type="link" data-id="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mustangs</a>. There are modified Mustangs. There are even extraordinarily customized Mustangs. But there is only one “Outlaw,” and it’s headed to Arizona.

This beautiful fastback bloomed as both an homage and a transformation, a car that honors the Mustang’s past while refusing to be defined by it. Familiar in silhouette, yet entirely new in execution, it represents the full realization of the Mustang’s original promise that an “accessible personal car,” in the right hands, could mature into something truly special.

The Fastback Outlaw

A radical one-of-one ’68 Mustang charges toward Mecum Glendale