“Honestly, before the Panhard bar, it was a total boat,” McKissack laughs. “Seeing what that changed, I wanted to see what sway bars would do. A 1 3/8-inch bar in front and a 5/8-inch bar in the rear gave it the sort of turn-in I was after,” he says.
Considering how the car was still sporting leaf springs and 275-section tires, it made good use of the grunt. It was a strong package, which helped him stand out at local track days, but McKissack’s urge to prove himself — a trait bred from a lifetime of competitive swimming — pushed him to find a more challenging outlet.
With an enormous footprint and minimal lean, this stiffly-sprung giant handles with the precision of a smaller car.
Searching for Something Greater
Full of confidence, Mckissack wasn’t intimidated by the prospect of running in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge. He’d witnessed an OUSCC event at Laguna Seca, fell in love with the level of competition, and tried it himself the following year at Thunderhill. Running on a set of tires his friend lent him, he finished in the Top 5 in the Street Car class, but its shortcomings were apparent.
While the Fairlane performed well, the stripped interior and lack of amenities didn’t impress the Design & Engineering judges much. A winning car in the OUSCC has to be half-show car and half-race car, and the stripped interior could never be called presentable. To give his Fairlane the sumptuous sort of insides the judges enjoy, he replaced most of the interior, polished every chrome component, and doused the exterior in a coat of ’84 Mustang White.
Though he gets flak for retaining it, the original wheel is one of McKissack’s favorite parts of the cabin.
Fortunately, this big boat was well-upholstered from the factory, so the addition of a pair of
Kirkeyaluminum racing seats, a half-cage, a few badges from a Focus RS, an assortment of
Autometer gauges, and an electric-blue theme throughout gave the cabin enough pizzazz to impress.