The BADD 302 Mustang grabs everyone's attention. Getting to or from parades, charity events and cruise night events has spectators eyes wide, and jaws in dropped mode, Then comes the smiling faces, waving hands and lots of thumbs-up. It's pretty hard to ignore the beautiful Vista Blue paint, accented with white stripes made famous during the 1960s by Carroll Shelby himself. The performance is unmistakable too. No internal combustion engine sounds more like performance than a mid-60's V-8.

So, why use a classic pony car to advertise a trophy shop? Why not? As the cliché says, "it's a no brainer." Gladiator Trophies and this Mustang have a lot in common. Both have offered reliable service over 30 years, and are rewarding in their own ways.

The response to this all-American classic is phenomenal. Kids like it because it's "cool", and men like it because they're men. Women love it because, as one lady told me, "...it is just plain sexy." I didn't ask for clarification, but I'm confident she meant the car.

Paul Moake bought the car from a co-worker in 1995. It looked and drove its age. He was an active duty Army Sergeant First Class who needed a hobby.

The Gladiator Trophies Mustang was a 302 even then, but it was anything but Badd. Paul says, "The drive home after I bought it was probably the most dangerous thing I've ever done. I drove it into the blinding sun on the Baltimore/Washington Parkway on a Friday afternoon. The late afternoon sun refracted through the old hazy windshield creating near "white out" conditions. Add to that the several thousand other people on the divided highway and you have pure excitement." He later found out about one and a half of the four brakes worked well "enough", it had broken motor mounts which allowed the motor to come up and hit the hood when accelerating, and the antique steering linkage was manual.

Vin number decoding told us it was built in late December 1968, but didn't sport the 302 engine option that was available. It was instead a 289 ci, three speed. Fun enough, but nothing like it was to become nearly forty years later and down so many miles of east coast roads. Paul spent a lot of time and money on the classic over the next ten years.

Creating the Gladiator Trophies Badd 302 meant developing the design concept and turning the needed manpower to professionals.

Deconstruction of the former upstate New York car found expected ware and tare and unexpected phone calls to the Gladiator headquarters from the project manager. "Paul, this is Dan...do you know of any reason this top would have been replaced in the past?" A masterfully applied coat of body filler hid a roof replacement. We can only speculate that sometime before the car reached the magical time period where it falls into the "not worth repairing" stage something fell on it and it was still worth replacing. Paul's goal to create a rolling representative for Gladiator Trophies meant building a head turning driver with its tires on the road and not on a trailer. The Gladiator Trophies Badd 302 Mustang is seen everywhere, but in car shows. It is a raucous, head turning piece of rolling artwork.