Elvira, Mistress of the Streets

People buy certain cars for certain reasons. Many fall into the whole marketing and status pitfall by purchasing a fancy brand that makes them appear richer or more successful than they really are. Watching someone pull up in an Italian car that ends with a vowel, one is made to believe the driver is whisked to the front of the line, seated in the VIP section, and offered a bottle of Dom P. before the escargot comes out.

In real life, we all know these cars often sit in heated garages, are driven a few hundred miles a year, and are used only for a quick ego boost in between fits of erectile dysfunction. Hardly ever will you see these cars used as their race-pedigreed manufacturers intended. Such rides do make you a hit with the ladies, but that gets pretty old, pretty fast. What really matters is how the car makes you feel, not how you want others to feel.

Then there are guys like us who buy cars to not only show them off, but to really drive them. At a moment's notice we can pack our bags and drive across the country, or bolt on a pair of street slicks and head to the nearest dragstrip. Guys like us are happy with a tank of race gas, a stack of chassis dyno sheets, and a case of beer.

Unlike most knuckle-dragging Mustang owners, Lynn Guthrie--the owner of the Lightning shown here--comes from the other side. That is, he worked his way up the food chain to land a tea-and-crumpets lifestyle. But eventually he realized what really mattered--his happiness. As a former big-time movie producer, Lynn has had his fair share of living the fast life with fast cars. He has owned all sorts of rare and expensive cars, but when all was said and done, he went back to his roots, the traditional American hot rod.

"Since I was 15, I had a fascination for fast cars and hot rods," Lynn says. "I literally lived American Graffiti in high school and cruised Van Nuys Boulevard and Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake during the '50s. I entered the Directors Guild of America at age 19 and directed and produced films for 45 years."

Lynn has worked on more than 200 motion pictures in 127 countries, including such classics as The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman and Mutiny on the Bounty with the late Marlon Brando.

"Because of my intense work schedule," Lynn says, "I didn't get to enjoy my love for hot rods as much as I would have liked. I owned Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but it wasn't the same as the musclecars of America. So, when I retired a few years back, I had the time to build something unique. I chose the Ford Lightning because I felt it was unusual to have a pickup truck that could be a hot rod."

The brand-new black '01 SVT Lightning appealed to all of Lynn's senses, much more so than any of his former Italian purebreds. "This new truck was dressed in black and looked sexy," he says. "She reminded me of Elvira, so that was the name I gave her." After visually caressing the voluptuous lines of the truck, he began to personalize his newest ride.

Lynn was adamant about driving his cars and not letting them collect dust in a garage. He decided to take a small tour of the country, going from one shop to another in his quest for power, speed, and class. Beginning with the short-block, he enlisted the services of D&D Motorsports in Valencia, California, to bore the 330-incher 0.020-inch over, and to receive the Manley rods and pistons that would better handle the planned horsepower figure of about double the factory rating. Then, Earl's Automotive in San Fernando, California, and JDM Engineering in Freehold, New Jersey, got the party started topside. The heads were ported and polished and treated to titanium valves. They were also welded up at the spark plug holes for more threads to capture the plugs. This allowed for a longer plug to better hold all the cylinder pressure. Custom Crower cams were torqued down to the heads, and the remainder of the engine was fully blueprinted.