Agustin Jimenez

We all have a story about how we became involved with cars. For me, it happened to start at the ripe young age of 12 after going for a ride in an black menacing 1988 Ford Mustang LX notchback with a healthy 306ci V-8 that made a nasty roar when it came to life. It was my cousin’s car and it was sort of a sleeper at the time – well at least it was if you weren’t directly behind it. For whatever reason, his father decided it would be a good idea to take his youngest son and me for a little joyride around the block. When we got to the stop sign at the end of the street, he lit up the tires and all hell seemed to break loose. As we pulled away from the cloud of tire smoke, my blood was pumping faster than it had ever pumped before. Even the wildest bike ride in the rain seemed like liking stamps compared to the awesome adrenaline rush I had experienced that day. Needless to say it was a thrill and I decided that day that I was going to someday have a Mustang just like that. After that incident, I became obsessed with Hot Rod magazine and of course, Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords to get my fix of Fox body action. Fast forward to a few years later when I decided to pursue a journalism degree while attending college at Cal State Fullerton and things just seemed to fall into place for me. By this time I had already owned three Mustangs and had sold off two of them while my first one unfortunately didn’t make it out of high school. It got pretty darn close but missed graduation by just one day. I ended up acquiring a 1979 Ford Bronco at the age of 19 and built it as my off-road rig of choice that I wheeled in Azusa Canyon in Southern California. After graduating college, I somehow landed as an intern at Off-Road magazine (now Dirt Sports + Off-Road) in the summer of 2009 where I became great friends with the editor, Jerrod Jones, who showed me the ropes of the magazine industry. I ended up becoming a freelancer for Off-Road and soaked up as much knowledge as I could about the automotive publishing world as well as the off-road world during my stint there. Oh yeah, I also got to ride in a Trophy Truck at 105 mph in the desert while hitting some deep whoops and serious jumps. In 2013, I was offered the position of Associate Online Editor for the off-road group at Source Interlink Media (now TEN: The Enthusiast Network) so naturally I took the job and learned what life was like on the inside. After the launch of the Four Wheeler Network, I became a Staff Editor for the group and got to experience some once in a lifetime opportunities such as being a part of Top Truck Challenge and Ultimate Adventure. I even got to blast across the deserts of Baja in a Baja Challenge race car last summer. As you can see, my love of the off-road world is still burning strong inside me as is evident in my current stable of off-road rigs that range from a prerunner Bronco that could leave a Raptor in its dust, my old 1979 Ford Bronco with a big block 460ci V-8 under the hood, and of course my latest love, my 1991 Ford Mustang notchback with a warmed over 5.0L V-8 and a set of drag radials. Going fast is just in the blood I guess so when I learned Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords was looking for a Technical Editor, I tossed my hat in the ring and hoped for the best. I was lucky enough to be welcomed onboard and back into the Mustang world and while things might have changed on the surface, the love and enthusiasm that the Mustang community has is still just as strong as I remember it. Needless to say, I’m stoked to be back in the Mustang world and I’m looking forward to hoping behind the wheel of this wild ride one more time.