So many of us, young and old, started out driving a Fox Body platform Mustang and moved on from there. No matter what your favourite flavour was, it was truly “fast on the cheap” back then, and hard to resist. But when was the last time you saw one of these, a 1978 Fairmont station wagon?
They weren’t known as the prettiest or most aerodynamic cars made, and they certainly had zero performance qualities. For some reason though, long after production stopped, people started to take an interest in them for street and strip machines, if for no other reason than just to be different…and different they are. They’re big and hold lots of people and stuff, so why not drop a new Coyote motor in and have the best of all worlds? And that was exactly what Tim Donathen was thinking.
Tim Donathen’s 1978 Fairmont Wagon came to him with original paint, dings, and roof rack! Perfect for a surfboard…but that’s another story! A paint buff is all Tim did to the wagon to doll it up as it was originally a southern car with rust-free body.
The body is all steel and all the trim is the way it came from the factory. The hood was swapped out for weight reasons with a composite flat hood from HO Fibertrends
Tim wasn’t shy at all at explaining where he can from. “I started off working on cars because I was poor,” he explained. “I couldn’t afford to pay anyone to work on my car, but I knew how to read, so I would buy the Chilton’s manual and read it… front to back.”
In High School Tim was part of the trade
school, and for some reason he was asked go for an interview with a pharmaceutical company. He went along with it, and this would change his life. “I did the interview and it was about cars! They asked if I had one and if I worked on it. I went on to explain all the things I had done, and that’s what got me the job.”
Much of the cool seventies stock interior was kept. In fact, Tim went to great lengths to keep the front seat as close to stock as possible and still fit the Long shifter in a way that looked factory original. The clear coated 10pt cage is the work of Bill and Austin Carter at Two Lane Performance.
Tim’s Wagon was originally equipped with a 302 that produced a whopping 139 horsepower. Now, a stock Gen 3 Coyote 5.0 Litre sits under the hood. The only additions to the stock setup are the 1 ¾” long tube headers and custom air tube.
Apparently Tim’s new employer had a fresh outlook on what they wanted from their team and that was hands-on skill, and Tim had that. “They told me ‘we can teach anyone how to run a machine, but we can’t teach mechanical aptitude’. They wanted to be confident that when they sent me out on a job I would be able to do what needed to be done.” Tim’s new career was with a company that had very high standards of work performance and quality and he soon
noticed these high standards starting to show up in the work he was doing on cars. “The people who know me, know how I do things now… it’s embedded now!” he added.
Tim always had a passion for anything fast, wild, or sometimes even dangerous and it wasn’t long before his passion for cars turned into Donathen Racing. “I started my business out of frustration I guess,” Tim said. “I felt I could do things better.”
Old school Bogart wheels are wrapped in Mickey Thompson rubber with the rear ET Drags tucked very neatly up in the factory
Tim Donathen’s 1978 Coyote Powered Ford Fairmont Station Wagon
Body & Paint:
1978 factory Ford Red paint - buffed out. HO Fibertrends hood.
Chassis Modifications:
10 pt cage - clear coated – done by Bill and Austin Carter at Two Lane Performance.
Suspension (Front & Rear):
Team Z rear suspension, Team Z upper torque box and antiroll bar.
Engine: Block Type, CID, Modifications/Parts Specs, etc.:
Gen 3 Coyote – 1-3/4” long tube headers and a custom inlet tube.
Rotating Assembly:
Stock
Cylinder Heads:
Stock
Induction & Fuel delivery:
Weldon Fuel Pump and Regulator from Jim Craig. Power Adder:
We don’t need no stinking power adders!!
Transmission:
G Force Transmissions 4 speed – G101A - prepped by Sean Scobe – Scobe Transmissions.
Rear:
Team Z 9” housing – Owner built center Section with input from Wayne at Indy Gear
Brakes:
Brake Man Brake. Tires & Wheels:
Bogarts with Mickey Thompson tires.
Interior:
Stock seats. “I tried to keep everything as stock as possible… even the radio works!”
ET & MPH:
9.851 at 135mph in the ¼.
Thanks To:
I can’t thank everyone enough. As much as you know or think you know, you can’t do this all alone. From my shop helper, Keith Withem to my test pilot dummy Bob Cosby, there are so many people thank:
Spaghetti Mendors – the best wiring system out there in my opinion.
Automation Race Cars – Brandon Stoner for helping with the parts and brain storming.
HO Fibertrends for the lightest hood ever made! These guys rock and are half the reason for the wheelies!
Indy Gear for the 9” build support.
Ron Turranski – Thank you for help on the transmissions. Scobe Transmissions – Thanks for the late-night support.
The Brake Man Brakes – Thanks Jason Smith.
Simple Machine – Thanks Dustin for the dyno!
Special Thanks to the guys who believed in me when no one else did: Team Timmy...Kevin McMullin, Randy Soper and Chad Stephens.
He continued, “You know how it is when you pay for something to be done and they just didn’t quite get the memo on how you wanted it done. That’s what led me to Donathen Racing.”
Tim was tired of paying for work to be done on his cars and many times having to clean it up or totally redo something, so he decided to jump in with both feet, and never forgot the valuable lesson he learned from those Chilton manuals years earlier; “You can’t fix anything unless you know the theory of how each system works.”
The search for a new project was now on and Tim knew one thing, it
wouldn’t be a Mustang. Admittedly, he loves the Fox Body and all gen erations of the car, but he sees them every day at the shop and at every car event, so he needed to feed his hunger with something different. He hit Craigslist just to see what was out there lo cally and quickly found out there wasn’t much at all. Tim expanded his search further and fur ther and came across an ad: “1978 Ford Fair mont station wagon, 302, automatic trans mission with just over 70,000 miles,” and this definitely piqued his in terest, especially after he found out it was owned by a newly retired Ford employee.
The very next day, Donathen headed out with trailer in tow for the 6-hour one-way haul to Traverse City, Michigan. The previous owner bought the car in Florida and had used it more like a truck and its sole purpose was to tow the fishing boat around. With his wife’s health deteriorating, he couldn’t fish anymore and
decided to sell the wagon. While the price seemed a bit high, Tim didn’t hesitate with the purchase. “On the way home, it was amazing how many people were giving me the thumbs up on the car. That’s when I knew I might have something cool if I could do it right. When I got home, I unloaded it and my wife asked immediately ‘Why did you buy that?’ I just shook my head and told her that I had a plan.” That “plan” was to go class racing with the NMRA in Coyote Stock! Coyote Stock is highly competitive, and Tim knew he would have his hands full with the sea of Mustangs he was going to compete against.
After working long hours at his day job, and more hours at his own Donathen Racing gig, Tim needed an out. So, after helping guys like Randy Soper, Kevin McMullin and Chad Stephens, he decided he wanted to make the wagon into a Coyote Stock class car.
In a sea of Mustangs, Tim races in the Coyote Stock class launching with wheelies most times
The NMRA Coyote Stock class is one of the most highly contested and arguably one of the most fun to watch! Wheelies like this are frequent and often straight up.
He debuted the wagon with the NMRA in May of 2021 at Worldwide Technology Raceway, in Madison, Illinois and for the first half dozen races or so Tim found himself qualifying towards the bottom of the field. Margins in Coyote Stock are tight, and Tim kept on pushing it, getting quicker, faster and more consistent each event. Without a single round win, he confidently entered Norwalk in June of 2022; “Normally out of 18 cars, I would qualify 15 or 16,” he said. “This time I stopped show-
boating the wagon and kept the wheelies down and qualified 6th with a 9.851 when the #1 qualifier ran a 9.78. For the first time I felt like I had a chance as I didn’t have a single round win at this point. Unfortunately, I had to race my buddy Kevin McMullin, but I won!”
The body on the Fairmont is all original steel with the exception of the HO Fibertrends hood. Even the 1978 Ford Red paint is almost factory fresh and was just buffed out after Donathen got it home.
Minor chassis work was next up and a 10-point cage was completed by Bill and Austin Carter at Two Lane Performance. Of course suspension mods were a must from front to back and Tim chose a Team Z rear suspension, upper torque box and antiroll bar, and built a Ford 9-inch rear for the wagon using a Team Z housing.
A Gen 3 Coyote mill with 1-3/4” long tube headers and custom inlet tube now grace the engine bay, and guess what, it’s stock, just like the Coyote Stock class says it has to be. A Wel-
don pump and regulator supply fuel, and once again, since there are no power adders permitted in the class, this Coyote runs all on its own.
You might notice the Long shifter tucked neatly in front of the factory bench seat… that’s because Tim rows the boat on the wagon through a G Force G101A 4-speed prepped by Sean Scobe of Scobe Transmissions.
Wanting to keep the interior all stock (or as much as possible) that tricky shifter fitment was made possible with help from Littles Upholstery.
