You won't have long to wait though; starting next month we'll have the first installment of the Max Effort Cougar and the first of several world-exclusive components available to you. We're starting at the rear with CorteX Racing's exclusive new rearend, built to spec by Speedway Engineering of Sylmar, California. Trust us; you haven't seen a rearend like this for a muscle car before, and we'll show you exactly why it's the best live axle for our high g-force pursuit.
The Build Team
Our partners in crime for this project will be the team at CorteX Precision Racing Technology. With an R&D shop situated right on Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, right next door to the Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche race team, you know these guys don't play around.
There's a reason CorteX's unofficial motto is "Everything Engineered." Founder Filip Trojanek (left) is a lifelong car nut who holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering with a focus on structural mechanics from Oregon State University. He's done everything from semiconductor manufacturing and Space Systems for Lockheed Martin, to chemical weapons demilitarization, and even nuclear power component design and analysis. To say he's a stickler for details and perfection is an extreme understatement. He's in charge of designing and evaluating everything that CorteX produces, and he won't put their name on it unless it's proven through engineering tools such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and real-world racing. CorteX even offers design engineering, 3-D modeling, FEA, and testing services to other companies in search of the "unfair advantage."
Colin Sebern (right) is CorteX's in-house Stig, and brings years of racing experience and stunt driving for blockbuster movies to the table as well as four years at Lotus Racing and three years at the BMW Design Center. You can usually find him lapping pure race cars in his stock drivetrain '08 Mustang prepped by CorteX. He's the one Trojanek turns to when it's time to see how much lap time a design change is worth, and he'll have carte blanche to make sure Max Effort is dialed in to the fullest extent. He'll also be the one making sure we're actually qualified to drive this Cougar.
The original white interior...
The original white interior is mostly stock and fairly nice; ignore the black velour inserts in the seats, if you can... Interestingly, this Cougar never had a lower console, which we always thought was standard for XR-7s.
For those who missed it last...
For those who missed it last month, this is the Trans-Cammer Mustang-one of the inspirations for the Max Effort Cougar. You can see more of it on Grand Touring Garage's website at www.GrandTouringGarage.com.
The other inspiration is this...
The other inspiration is this Bud Moore-prepped No. 98 Cougar that Dan Gurney drove in Trans-Am in '67. The three-car Mercury team placed Second behind the Mustangs that year and never returned to Trans-Am, but DeWayne "Tiny" Lund took the No. 16 Cougar and dominated the NASCAR Grand Touring series in '68, taking the championship.
One of our favorite parts...
One of our favorite parts of the XR-7 interior: the switches and the oil pressure gauge mounted in the dash. It's like it's begging to be a track car.
The menacing red Mustang peeking...
The menacing red Mustang peeking in at the side of the photo is CorteX's rolling testbed, dubbed "The Beast," and the No. 45 white SN-95 Mustang in the rear is an AIX competition car. Check out CorteXRacing.com for extreme testing videos on Infineon of the Beast, No. 45, and Colin's '08 Mustang GT daily driver.
The stock short-block 5.0...
The stock short-block 5.0 roller engine is plenty dirty, but hosts a bevy of good go-fast goodies. We've never heard it run, but we'll definitely tear into it down the line to see what kind of power we can wring out. Note the mismatched and unbolted valve covers-usually not a good sign.