The story of the ARI Mustangs:
John Bakke
ARI
ordered the cars for use at 5 racetracks around the US. One of the racetracks
was not finished yet. They ordered 5 428 CJ convertibles and 5 428CJ fastbacks.
Those 5 convertibles were intended as the real pacecars and were geared for
240km/h (about 155mph).
Those other fastbacks were meant to be used as cars for the staff and other
bigshots. The pacecar convertibles have VIN's from
120300-120304, but the fastbacks were taken from the ordinary lot, Kevin Marti has the VIN's. Obviously they all were 428 Cobra Jet
powered cars.
In 2005/2006 Kevin Marti did some research and informed about the VINs.
The ARI promo fastbacks are mostly in the 13___ VIN range and sold to
various dealers in Texas.
Twister Mustang by the way are all in the 0F05_118 range. One
example is VIN 0F05M118879 having been at an auction in the year 2000. And as
the Twisters are made in consecutive numbers this clarifies they are made prior
to the ARI cars.
We have rumours that some of the ARI cars were
sent to the same dealer as the Twisters. We have also heard that dealers removed
those ARI graphics and sold those cars as ordinary mustangs.
I also know that there were 100 Twister cars ordered and they were ordered as
428 cars. But Ford was short of 428 engines, so they put 351 in 48 of them, but
all of them had 428 engine compartments. And the final delivery was shortened to
96 cars.
The Twister Registry (Terry Fritts, 7520 N.W. Rochester, Topeka, KS 66617) has
more information on those Twisters and is online since a few years at www.twisterspecialregistry.com
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John Bakke - Riverside conv. 
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