ROUSH MUSEUM
THE ROUSH MUSEUM
The bon ton teach us that you can’t go to friends’ home without a present.
Following this rule, which my parents thought me, I went to the museum of one of the “Holy monsters” of Ford Mustang customizer : Jack Roush.
When you get inside the museum, located in ,Livonia, Michigan, seems to enter in the garage of an old friend , but with more vehicles and memorabilia.
The air inside there smell of sweat, tyres, asfalt and racing.
The carry of the vehicles in this place is astonishing. Cleans, tide, positioning are simply perfect; from Ford prototypes, through the personal ones, arriving to the vehicles made Nascar history. The magnitude and variety of them is really incredible.
The first car which takes our attention is a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429, in Royal Maroon, with the VIN number 429.
Some of the first Mustang Roush (1998-2004), which came out with side mufflers.
One of the most strange prototypes you can find there is, a Ford “INDIGO”, 2 seats, only two produced ( one of the two after an auction has been sold and then destroyed in an accident) in1996. Roush contributed to create great part of the body made in carbon fiber and he also helped for what concerns the engine 6.0 l V12, 435 horse power, and six speed button manual shifting.
Followed by 1994 Ford SVE Boss Mustang , a concept realized by SVE, il predecessor of SVT. That car has an engine 429, taken to 10 l(!) with tailored manifold in alluminum, Which push that car to 850 horsepower which lead it to compete on the ¼ mile in 10.55 seconds.
The “Taxi di Tijuana”, found from us under a tarp, is a clone of a Ford Maverick, 5 doors, with which Roush attended the NHRA Pro Stock championship, ending at the second place by points, because of a problem during the opening ofv the final championship. The original one had a 351 discretely modified, it was sold in 1976, and the destroyed. That clone will be operational to the 100% in 2-3 years.
The 3 Ford GT represent the evolution of the Ford GT, from the first test prototyphes (which americans call confidentially “mule”) to the car produced between 2004 and 2006. Roush deals with the suspensions.
The C7 Cunningham represents an unsuccessfull attempt of creating one of the most luxurious American cars, deploiting the old fashioned name of, Briggs Cunningham II, LeMans legend . This car has a vacuum body, exhibited at the Detroit auto show in 2001, that was purchased by Roush, with the intent to preserve it.
There are also other 2 strange cars, code name GN-34, with a posterior central engine, which would be launched against Pontiac Fiero and C4 Corvette in the two sits market. The name would became Taurus SHO. These were built by SVO (which will become SVE and then SVT, to arrive to the todays name of Ford Performance Group) on the base of the body of De Tomaso pantera GT5, hardly modified. These cars are just a prototyp, and these are the only two exemplars actually existing.
The “Bohnalite Special”, is a faithful replication of a car built in 1932 in Deaborn by Don ‘Sully’ Sullivan , mechanic and racer, who used it during the Indy 500. Those autos run up until 1933, but unfortunately during a race, it bumped because of a wildfire. It has a V8 flathead engine. In 2000 Jack Roush decided to rebuilt perfectly similar to the original, to race during the “Great Race”, an event dedicated to historic cars sponsored by History Channel. Many hours needed, archived photos, interviews with the pilot/builder family members to reach the results we can see in those photos.
In the second hall leaps to the eyes a Roush 427R and a P-51A, special models realize in a limited edition. And the 2008 Mustang GT with which Jack Roush Jr. raced at Continental Tire sports car challenge
There was present also the clay model of Ford Mustang Roush 2015, positioned in the middle of the hall.
What about the “nicest” car we saw? A Ford Taunus NASCAR, sponsored by VIAGRA.
The most curious thing are the remains of the first plane crash of Jack Roush (he had two. The last one The last cost him the loss of his right eye), hang at the wall when you enter in the second hall of the museum.
“Welcome to the Roush Museum !”, we weregreeted, on the threshold of the second part of the museum, by a young archivist, Tyler Wolfe, who tell us the history about the museum and its cars, from the Hydrogen fusion which is trying to beat the world speed record of its category, to the LPG dragster which race on the 1/4 of mile, headed by Susan Roush, Jack daughter. Susan came near us while we were speaking with Tyler, she took us to see their LPG dragsters (or butane as they say in the USA). We enter in the back, in an area usually forbidden to tourists, where we admire the 2 Susan’s dragsters, a 2007 Ford Mustang GT and a 2004 Ac Cobra LPG of Susan. We had the opportunity to speak whit the mechanic chief, who explained us how firmly Roush is investing the use of clean energy (with the branch company Roush Cleantech. They shown us two Livonia butan school buses actually in use, which represent their development to a more European idea of technology. Coming back to the workshop, we saw a 1967 Ford Mustang Coupe’, under a towel. I kindly ask to Susan Roush:” What is that car?” Susan remove the towel, taking out a magnificent Drag Racing car. She told us that this was the first Ford mustang which his father Jack prepared for 1/4 miles races. Two months before she was contacted by an enthusiast from Illinois, who had casually bought the car. Removing the first layers of paint appeared some Decals with the name of Jack. After a phone call and all the After a phone call and some investigations , Susan asked to the gentleman how much he wanted for that car ;she sent a container and two weeks after she received the car, which was a part of her father history, it has to be restored, but it had no price! We said goodbye to Susan, but before we gave her a gift for Jack, and we get inside with Tyler in the zones being set up in the museum, there were many memorabilia of the agonistic past of Roush. They said us that will become a leisure room for visitors with a Wurlitzer and an American coffee machine.
We leave, abandoning all hope to meet Jack.
But 2 weeks later, after our return to home , we received an email from Tyler, with a photo of Jack wearing our gift: A Mustangmania Jacket!
Well, what can we say; we were really surprised from the consideration given to us!
See you later Jack. We hope to make an interview with you soon!
Questo post è disponibile anche in: 
Italian
