When you find yourself browsing Facebook Marketplace for modified cars, you’re going to stumble upon some strange stuff. Perfectly preserved early-2000s tuner cars, unusual stretch limousines, engine swaps that seem mildly terrifying in an amusing way. However, body-swaps are some of the strangest. While putting the body of one car over the chassis of another isn’t unheard-of, swapping the body of a 1966 Ford Mustang onto the bones of a 2008 Porsche 911 is off the wall. Guess what? Someone did it, and it’s up for sale.
Complicating this concept, the two cars involved in this feat of automotive alchemy aren’t dimensionally close. Not only is the 911 three inches wider than the Mustang, it rides on a wheelbase 15.5 inches shorter than that of the Ford and cuts a silhouette some 7.3 inches shorter. Nevertheless, one builder decided to make the two cars fit together, and the result looks decidedly weird.
The biggest source of strangeness isn’t the lobster claw wheels filling bolted-on wheel arch extensions, but the dash-to-axle shenanigans going on with this build. Remember the wheelbase disparity? Part of that is due to how the 911 was able to suck its front wheels relatively close to the front bulkhead because the engine’s in the back. In contrast, the first-generation Mustang features a front axle pushed well toward the front of the car, so to make the Mustang body fit over the 911 chassis, the builder of this thing had to move the front wheel arches way back.
The result is a front overhang that really hangs, seemingly three times longer than it actually should be. We’re talking borzoi-tier levels of snoot, like this thing’s reaching out for a treat. Oh, and it gets weirder. Because the 911 has its fuel filler neck in the right front fender, elements on that fender get really squished, with a metal filler cap sitting quite close to the fender flare.
Beyond the cosmetic weirdness, there are some upsides to this conversion. A late-2000s Porsche 911 drives a whole lot better than a 1960s Mustang, and since just about the entire cockpit is straight-up Porsche 911, you get supportive seats and highly legible gauges and modern conveniences like climate control. You could even retrofit a PCCM Plus head unit for factory-grade Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I could also imagine that the large Mustang trunk gives decent access to that rear-mounted engine, particularly when compared to the relatively small engine cover of a 911.
At the same time, I’d love to see what the cooling package looks like on this creation, given how much front end it has. The seller also states that the “Interior/frunk needs finish work,” so what lies beneath that long hood is still a bit of an unknown.
Still, if you’re alright with the oddness, this mashup of Mustang and 911 is relatively cheap. In a way, this is a 53,000-mile stick-shift 997 up for sale at a list price of $19,500. Granted, it doesn’t appear to have the full body structure of a 997 so I have no idea how the conversion has affected the handling (probably not positively), but it’s probably still a fun machine to hoon about.
Top graphic credit: Facebook Marketplace
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Some people have a lot more money and gumption than smarts. I think the builder is one of them.
So, he spent a bunch of time and money to make it less valuable, but at least it looks well done. Why is it so often that those with skills and means have no vision and vise versa?
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should!!
Why?
15 minutes of fame is 15 minutes of fame, even if it’s really infamy for doing something stupid that ruins two cars instead of one.
Maybe if they cut down the front overhang, this would be stupid enough to work, but as it stands, it’s just stupid.
Seriously! With the level of fabrication involved (which, in and of itself seems pretty impressive), you’d think the builder would just remove a chunk of the fenders to give it better proportions.
That’s… well… it’s something. Not something good, but it’s something. Who the fuck would buy this? Porsche guys? No fucking way. Mustang guys? I really doubt it.
I’m assuming (hoping) that a wrecked Porsche was the basis for this, and that a decent 997 didn’t have to die for this abomination to be born.
I feel like this person really wanted a Corvair, but in the hardest way possible.
Maybe this has been said elsewhere, but I feel like “Admin” on your user badge is too… quaint.
Chief Taillight Officer? Vice President of Automotive Doodling? Attending Physician of Vehicular Anatomy?
Torch. That’s it. No ‘the’, no title, just Torch.
Body swaps are some of my favorite builds. I love seeing what people do to try and make them fit. I’m finishing up one myself, a 1971 Travelall on a Tahoe. I had to move the front wheel arch back 3 inches to fit the wheelbase, plus I made some significant other body modifications, namely 1st gen Dodge Dakota wheel arches on all 4 corners, then I completely redesigned the side profile from nose back to front wheel arch and tail forward to rear wheel arch.
See here if interested in the results https://youtu.be/UgiVKhUVEt0?si=TAU5U0h3slqd0Csw Skip to 26:40 to see the full side view and discussion of changes
That front overhang is just… really something. Stuck a RR chassis under a FR body and it somehow ends up looking very FF.
Yeah, I feel like I owe Audi an apology. I always thought that cars like the Quattro and 5000 had ridiculous overhangs, but they don’t have shit on this thing.
The is a perfect example of why just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD do something.
This car is such a pile of confusion. Does it run into people at Cars and Coffee or scoff at them? Does it participate in a street takeover in Malibu or Palm Beach? Budweiser or Glen Livet?! Park it next to your other vehicle – a Contractor Van or a Land Rover Defender?!
What do you call it? He should have at least cut off the middle of the roof so we could call it a “Marga”
It runs into people at a Cars and Coffee but does it backward.
Yeesh! A Mustang II has a wheelbase that’s only 4″ longer. Would have worked so much better. And how fun would it be to absolutely smoke others on tracks days in a Mustang 9-II!
Jesus Christ. Either shorten the Mustang front fenders and hood or move the Porsche wheels further forward. The builder has some skills for sure, but why not go the extra mile?
This was my thought. The moving of the arch demonstrates the metal skills are there. I wonder if it actually looked way worse with shortened fenders messing the proportions up even further? You would have to rework the fender tops to get a decent dropoff though to try and get back down to fit the dimensions of the nose/grill parts though. That would be pretty involved compared to just moving an arch.
All that effort and they couldn’t stretch the 911 chassis to make the proportions work?
Blasphemy!
Not my cup of tea. Not being negative here but why? Inquiring minds want to know.
Holy overhang Batman!
Proportions matter, and these ones are bad. Really bad.
I can’t decide if I hate this, or that mutant “Scout” more.
I would love to have the creator of this abomination be a guest on member’s rides. I don’t want to yuck someone’s yum, but this is just deeply, deeply unsettling.
911 + vintage Mustang is in the Venn diagram nobody asked for.
This is a cool project but also a terrible one. No thanks.
No. Just no. In fact, HELL no.
Poster child for ATBGE.
All that effort and the result is a Porsche no one wants and a Mustang no one wants simultaneously.
I keep counting the spokes on the wheels to make sure it’s not AI.
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should
The best kind of stupid
Yeah, no.