“I’ve been flipping burgers since I was 14 years old,” Chad Williams told us when we asked him his profession. With a chuckle, he went on to explain that he’s been working in McDonalds nearly all his life and is now a franchisee and owner of ten Mickey D restaurants in the Hattiesburg, Mississippi area with his wife Heather.
“I don’t golf, I don’t go on vacations,” he said. What does he do instead, you ask? Chad plays with cars. Not model cars or remote control cars, but high-power street cars like an 8-second Lingenfelter C7 Corvette and an ’09 GT500 KR. He even raced a mid-4-second (eighth-mile) X275 New Edge Mustang for a while, and was the second car in the class to break into the 4.50’s. You know, big boy stuff.
So you may be surprised that he’s the owner of the inconspicuous Fox-body coupe on the adjacent pages. More surprising may be that he didn’t just buy the car because he saw it and had to have it; he actually had it built to his specifications from a bare shell. He wanted a ’91 restomod, which is not something you hear of.
Over a 13-month period the Flavians worked their magic on Chad’s coupe. They worked the body over with a custom Terminator-style hood and a mirror-finish, custom-mix paint job by the elder Flavian. They smoothed out the engine bay, undercoated the car with truck bed coating, and reassembled the Fox using all stainless steel hardware.
“I wanted a 4R70W for cruising, and at the time no one had done a Coyote swap with an automatic, but the Flavians figured out how to do it.” They wanted him to do an IRS as well, but Chad had to draw the line somewhere, right? So he had them rebuild the stock 8.8-inch rearend with beefier guts and 3.73 gears.
Under the hood lies a Ford Racing 5.0L Coyote crate engine, complete with a Vintage Air pulley system and a JLT cold-air kit. Through the TCI 4R70W transmission, and on a custom tune by Monty Johnson at JMS Chip & Performance, the Coyote produced 437 rwhp on the chassis dyno—no power adder necessary.
“I wanted a 4R70W for cruising, and at the time no one had done a Coyote swap with an automatic, but the Flavians figured out how to do it.” They wanted him to do an IRS as well, but Chad had to draw the line somewhere, right? So he had them rebuild the stock 8.8-inch rearend with beefier guts and 3.73 gears. Other chassis modifications included Wilwood brakes all the way around, UPR K-member and A-arms, Steeda upper and lower control arms, Tokico shocks and struts, and Maximum Motorsports caster/camber plates. It rolls on 17-inch CCW wheels and Toyo rubber.
But if you think the exterior is the jewel of this build, then you haven’t seen the interior. The Flavians can do it all, including upholstery. Eddie and Stephen hand formed the foam for the seats and then upholstered them with leather and suede. But that’s just one custom touch.
“I didn’t want it to feel like a Fox-body,” Chad explains. “So I had them do the ’03 dash and door panels.” We’ve seen the SN-95 dash in many Foxes, but never the door panels. The Flavians also trimmed out the trunk with a custom box concealing the battery and Kicker sub-woofer.
So how much fun is this little coupe to drive? Well, Chad told us that he and Heather drove it—instead of his Vette or KR—to Cruisin’ the Coast, a massive automotive gathering on the Mississippi coast.
“We can cruise at 80 miles an hour with the windows up and the air blowing,” Chad said. “It drives like a new Mustang.” So it’s no wonder why Chad would rather grab the keys to this Fox-body over the other cars in his stable. It encompasses classic styling, plenty of usable power, great handling, and an elegant cabin—everything a restomod should be.
