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Original PC setup when "The Mustang Works™" was founded
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Mustang Works™ began the same way many earlier Internet success stories did: as a personal website.
MW's founder, Dan McClain, was a Computer Science student at the time from South Easern Michigan, building a small website to showcase his interests. One of those interests, alongside programming which he began learning at the age of eight, was Ford Mustangs. By the time the site launched, Dan had already owned and worked on three Mustangs and was now the proud owner of his fourth: a Fox Body Mustang GT.
What started as a simple personal page featuring hobby content, technical notes, and links quickly evolved into something much larger.
Project: Street Fighter 1000
At the center of that early site was Dan’s Mustang GT, now known as “Street Fighter 1000”. What began as a stock car rapidly turned into a full performance build. Today, the vehicle is a complete ground-up rebuild featuring a race-built, 1000+ horsepower supercharged 427 cubic inch stroker engine. Despite the extreme power output, the car remains full street trim, weighs approximately 3,600 pounds, and is still street driven.
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Mr. McClain's Mustang GT dubbed, "Street Fighter 1000", is now a total rebuild. It features a race built, 1000+ HP supercharged 427 cid 5.8L stroker engine. Still in full street trim, and weighing 3600 lbs, it is street driven. After a full, slow rolled rebuild was completed over a decade, it debuted in 2024 and then won the 90-99 Hard Top class at the 2025 Detroit Autorama.
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As Dan puts it:
“I’ve always loved performance vehicles, but especially Mustangs and my own Mustang GT. I had owned and raced three Mustangs before this one, but none of them were exactly what I wanted. I was looking for a vermilion red Mustang with a black interior. Once I found it, it stayed stock for about a week. From there it was lowered, fitted with a full Flowmaster exhaust, and a nitrous kit. Within a month it was running 12.6 in the quarter mile on eight-inch slicks.”
From Personal Page to Community Hub
At the same time Dan was modifying his car, he was diving headfirst into emerging web technologies. With a background in computing and a curiosity for the rapidly expanding Internet, he continued to expand the site, adding technical content, how-to information, and Mustang-related resources.
What he noticed early on was that there was no central online destination for Mustang performance enthusiasts. Forums and communities were still in their infancy, and reliable technical guidance was difficult to find.
The goal became clear: build a place where Mustang owners could connect, share knowledge, and avoid the mistakes that often come with trial-and-error modification.
Traffic grew rapidly. What began with a few hundred page views per week quickly climbed into the thousands. Within months, the site was renamed Mustang Works™ and refocused entirely on serving the Mustang community. Within a year, the site was generating over 50,000 page views per month.
A Digital Magazine for Ford Enthusiasts
Over time, MustangWorks.com™ evolved into one of the larger Ford enthusiast destinations on the web, transforming from a personal site into a full digital magazine. The platform expanded to thousands of pages, custom-built features, and an active readership that eventually reached 5 million page views per month and over 100,000 unique readers during its peak years.
While the Internet landscape has changed dramatically since those early days, Mustang Works™ continues to operate with the same core mission: serving the Ford and Mustang enthusiast community with authentic content, technical insight, and a shared passion for performance.
Today, Mustang Works™ remains an enduring online resource for those who own, build, race, and appreciate one of America’s most iconic performance cars.
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