Back in the late 1960s, NASCAR’s homologation rules required automakers to produce street-legal versions of the cars they planned to campaign in competition and offer them for sale to the general public. For a brief period of time when wild aero was king, this resulted in the big wing Mopars – the Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird – along with Ford’s Torino Talladega and its corporate cousin, the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II.

Built for the big oval tracks of the series, these cars were designed to use wind to their advantage, creating meaningful downforce and stability at high speeds while also keeping aerodynamic drag to a minimum. It’s a strategy that ultimately worked a little too well, and NASCAR effectively banned the "Aero Cars" after just two seasons in competition.

Today, the street-legal homologation cars are highly sought after by collectors and often kept under temperature-controlled lock and key, only to see the light of day on rare occasions. But Mike Callahan of Cincinnati, Ohio doesn’t roll that way.

Callahan’s Cyclone Spoiler II was originally built in Ohio and then shipped to California, where it was sold new at the Sachs & Sons dealership in Downey. The Spoiler II was available in two different trims – the white exterior, red interior Cale Yarborough Special, and the Dan Gurney Special, which featured white paint with a blue interior. This car is one of the Gurney models, though it received a more sinister coat of black paint decades ago.

Callahan spent a few years running Power Tour and competing in the Ultimate Street Car Challenge, the Ohio Mile and other series with a ’99 Crown Victoria, a car with an interesting background in its own right. Formerly a Bondurant Racing School instructor car used for training exercises at the facility, as the story goes a total of 18 Crown Victoria Police Interceptors were originally sent out to Roush Performance by Bondurant and outfitted with the powertrain from the Mustang SVT Cobra, along with various chassis and aesthetic upgrades from the Ford Performance parts bin. Colloquially known as "Cobra Vics", the Bondurant Crown Victorias were the closest things to a no-holds-barred traditional muscle car and the fantasy of many a gearhead who loved the idea of a full-frame sedan with room for at least four adults and a manual transmission.

“I thought it was a really cool car, so when the school switched over the GM vehicles, I picked one up,” he explains. “I lowered it and cleaned it up a bit, but it already had the safety stuff in it, so for the most part I left it the way it was. That’s the first car I ran at Bonneville. My whole life I’ve been reading in HOT ROD Magazine about cars at Bonneville Salt Flats and I’d always thought that would be a really cool experience. So when I retired, I decided I was going to run it.”

The car had enough juice to join the “130 Club” at the salt flats, running an average speed of 130 mph or above during the last quarter mile of a 2.25-mile exhibition pass. But after a few years of faithful service and plenty of knowledge gleaned from returns to the salt flats with the Crown Victoria, Callahan found himself at a crossroads with the car.

“The engine developed a big problem – bad piston, or rings, or something those lines,” he recalls. “And at that point I figured I had two options: either sink a bunch of money into this car, or sell it and start on something new.”

Callahan chose the latter, and after the Crown Vic moved on to its new owner in 2014, he began scouring eBay for the next project. “This ’69 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II caught my eye immediately, it’s just a really cool looking car. I bid on it, but I was actually out-bid by someone else.”

Fortunately that buyer ended up backing out after the fact, so Callahan was able to strike a deal with the seller. “The car was out in LA and I had planned to have it transported back to Ohio,” he says. “But the car was so nice, I decided to just fly out there and drive it back.”

The 2,200-mile journey home gave him a chance to get to know the car and figure out what worked and what didn’t. “By the time I got to Cincinnati I had a list of stuff I wanted to do to the car – it’s a nice car, but I knew I could make it better.”

The original 351 Windsor motor had been tossed in favor of a 351 Cleveland at some point in the car’s life, and it was mated with a four-speed Toploader that sent the power to a Ford 9in/Detroit Locker combo with 2.75 gear ratio. “I thought that was just about perfect for Bonneville,” he tells us. “So in 2016, I drove it from Cincinnati to Bonneville, aiming to join the ‘150 Club.’”

Outfitted with safety equipment but otherwise largely unchanged from how it came home from Los Angeles, Callahan ran a 154. “It felt pretty good – it was skating around a little bit on the big end, but otherwise it felt extremely solid.” Having accomplished his goal, Callahan thought his days of running at Bonneville might have been behind him after that. “But in 2018 I got the itch to go again,” he says. “I knew I could do better.”

This time around he made a few changes, though. He uncorked the exhaust, outfitted the car with skinnier drag tires up front, and improved the aerodynamics by removing the side mirrors and wipers and adding a belly pan, efforts which yielded him a 165 mph pass. “The car felt great, but I knew there was still more in it. And a few weeks after I got back from Bonneville, people started asking me what was next.”

So he set a new, far loftier long term target – 200 MPH – and has started the process of getting the car outfitted for the task. “Part of the challenge over the past year has been to set up the car so it can get through tech inspection at Bonneville while still remaining legitimately a driver.”

Running at that target pace is an entirely different ballgame from his previous exhibition runs, though. Callaham first removed all the factory glass, replacing it with polycarbonate pieces that are braced so they can’t blow into or out of the car, then he added a full roll cage and a race seat with a containment halo.

He’s also freshened up the 351C with a bigger mechanical fuel pump, a new single-plane intake and upgraded to a Holley 850 CFM double pumper carburetor, and a transmission swap to a Tremec TKX five-speed is on the way. “The intake and carb should help out on the big end,” he notes. “The weather is kind of preventing us from getting a lot of seat time in at the moment, but we’re dialing it in and it feels great. This year we’ll be running three miles and I’ll have an extra gear to work with, so I’m expecting to run faster than 165. I’ll be happy with anything over 175.”

Callahan sees the 200 mph target as an attainable goal, but one he expects to climb toward in increments. “It’s something I’m taking year by year. And by the time I get home from this year’s runs at Bonneville, I’ll probably already have a plan worked out for the next one.”

After hitting personal bests of 154 mph and 165 mph in previous outings with the Mercury, Callahan is currently gunning for 175 mph on a three-mile pass. His ultimate goal is for the Cyclone to hit 200 mph on the salt.