You’ve heard us harping on the subject of Overdrive for a while, and we still feel the same way, perhaps even more so. No other swap brings your vintage Mustang or other special-interest Ford alive like the addition of another gear up top. Add Overdrive, and your buzz-bomb will become a quiet and smooth performer while achieving far better fuel mileage. Driver and passenger fatigue are dramatically reduced to the extent you’ll be wondering if you’re even riding in the same car as before. All of a sudden, those long-range road trips are a real possibility, instead of just a noisy pipe dream. Trust us when we tell you there are few performance modifications you can make to your street-driven car that are more important or nicer than the addition of Overdrive. Take a ride in a friend’s car that’s had an Overdrive swap and you’ll see what we mean.
If changing transmissions is something you’d rather not do or you’re running a high-power application, you should consider an Overdrive unit from Gear Vendors Overdrive. This bulletproof unit fits behind the transmission you have and allows you to overdrive any gear in your transmission. Put a Gear Vendors unit behind your C4 three-speed automatic and you’ve got a car with six forward speeds and two in reverse. Sound cool? You bet, and the Gear Vendors unit is easy to install. It also allows you to retain your stock crossmember and shifter arrangement. You’ll need to shorten the driveshaft, but that’s necessary when you do most any kind of Overdrive swap.
Follow along with us to Pony Concept Cars of Orange, California, and we’ll show you just what’s involved in installing a Gear Vendors unit. Our test car is Tim Love’s beautiful blue ’70 Mustang Mach 1. Tim is a Mustang veteran and he’s very excited about this project, so let’s look in on the action.