DIALED IN
No Ordinary Thunderbird
From daily driver to NHRA Super
Street, Butch Dresback’s Ford has
served the family well
By Van Abernethy
PHOTOS: VAN ABERNETHY
B
utch Dresback remembers quite
well the first time he ever laid eyes on
his sporty 1988 Ford Thunderbird
Turbo Coupe, although admittedly,
building a race car out of this street
cruiser wasn’t exactly the first thought that
went through his mind.
“First time I ever saw this car it was sitting in
some guy’s yard with a ‘for sale’ sign on it,” Butch
laughingly recalls. His first logic was the notion
that the car would make a perfect daily driver for
his daughter, Haley, so he ponied up the agreed
price of $4,600 and promptly brought the car
home. The year was 1994 and the T-bird has
been in the family ever since. It was a factory
five-speed car in the beginning and young Haley
had never driven one before, but in no time flat
she was cruising around town, banging gears
like a pro. “She got the hang of it pretty quickly,”
Butch proudly remembers.
July 2016
After driving the car for several years, Haley
begin to fancy a newer model Thunderbird and
her first consideration was to trade in the 1988
model, but her dad wasn’t crazy about getting
rid of the car, especially since
these Turbo Coupes were
semi-collectable even back
then. Butch persuaded her to
just park the car at his shop
and they’d find her a newer
model to drive, which was
exactly how it worked out.
For the next 7 years, Haley’s
first T-bird sat untouched in
her father’s shop, until one
day Butch was consumed
with desire to build a race
car out of it.
Haley was completely
onboard with the idea, especially since she, too, dabbles
in racing and even has a rear
engine dragster she races
from time to time. Butch
immediately went to work
on the car’s transformation,
and although he wanted to head up the project
largely himself, he contracted the advice of Advanced Chassis, a company located near his home
in New Carlisle, Ohio.
“I bought a four-link, a
hoop and a couple frame
rails and the rest I fabricated
myself,” he says. The Bowers
family from Advanced Chassis steered Desback along
throughout the process and
scaled the car for him when
he was finished. Butch has
always loved the look of a
Thunderbird, so he went
out of his way to preserve
the original lines of the car.
Except for the Hairy Glass
front end, the car retains
the factory steel body, and
when it came time to paint
the finished project, Butch
stayed with the Ford factory
paint code and left the original molding and emblems in
place. The car still sports all
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