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. 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. 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. 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. “She got the hang of it pretty quickly,” Butch proudly remembers.Īfter 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.

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. The year was 1994 and the T-bird has been in the family ever since. 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. “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. Butch 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.

88 thunderbird coupe