"You ain't seen nothing yet" is what Unique Performance should have told us in 2002. That's the year they started building continuation G.T.500E Mustangs in partnership with Carroll Shelby.
Come to think of it, founders Doug Hasty, Richard Kearby, and Chris Layne didn't know how big and how quick their humble car shop would grow. But look at them now. After just four years, the company is on back-order 12 to 14 months for its popular continuation Shelby Mustangs. They have aligned with Tecstar to produce a new '06 Chip Foose Mustang that will appear in Ford showrooms this summer. They have also forged a deal to build Foose Camaros. They'll even have a part in creating and building the new Shelby F-150 series pickup. No doubt Unique will build more special performance vehicles wearing the blue oval, ranging from restomod to new.
To learn more about this trend-setting company, we flew into Dallas and drove about 10 miles to Farmers Branch, 13950 Senlac Drive, home to Unique Performance. From the outside, it looks like every other concrete building in the industrial complex. Only a painted sign on the front-door glass reveals what's inside.
At the Denton Drive facility, this '67 fastback is starting to look like the beginnings of an Eleanor.
Visitors are greeted by Kristen, whose official job title is administrative assistant. Unofficially, cohorts call her the director of first impressions because she has a smile that lights up a room. To her left is the showroom. On this trip, we spotted a G.T. 500E convertible, a prototype '06 Foose Mustang Stallion convertible, and a standard G.T. 500E fastback.
The shop takes up most of the 30,000 square feet, where Bobby Mikus supervises a metal and body shop, twin paint booths, vehicle assembly, and what Unique calls an R&D skunk works program.
We noticed a few Foose Camaros under construction, but mostly we saw '67 Mustang fastbacks and a sprinkling of '65s. There was also an almost-finished '68 convertible that we hear is a new model called the G.T. 500SR. Under the hood was an FE-series 427 topped by a trick fuel-injection setup. A just-finished '65 G.T. 350SR caught our attention with its flashy white paint and red stripes. Turns out, it's Mikus' personal car.
At Unique, there's no telling what may come up next. The shop reminds us of Shelby's old place at the L.A. Airport where he built Mustangs, Cobras, and Ford GTs.
Unique Performance founders (left to right) Richard Kearby, Chris Layne, and Doug Hasty started the company to fulfill their wants and needs from cars.
Front and center at Unique is Doug Hasty, a personable man in his 40s, who runs the day-to-day operations. He has that executive look and demeanor but with the rough exterior of someone well acquainted with building hot rods.
"We basically started the company just to fill our desires for cars," Hasty explained.
High on the original list was an Eleanor Shelby like the one that appeared in the movie Gone In Sixty Seconds. Hasty built one using a body kit from Cinema Vehicle Services, the company that supplied the cars for the movie. His original intention was simply to drive his Eleanor on the street. But he discovered a demand for the car when his home-built Eleanor won awards at car shows