CONCORD, NC – So what do you do if you happen to be in town for an event and you have some cool friends close by that you’d like to see? Well, you arrange to visit with them to catch up, of course! That’s exactly what happened when we were in Charlotte, North Carolina, recently to attend the 2025 Ford Performance Season Launch event, In this case, the friends we’re talking about are the team at RTR. Luckily, the RTR headquarters is only a stone’s throw away from the Charlotte Motor Speedway where the Ford event was held. So we thought, what better way to spend a Friday than to stop in to see some friends at RTR and get the inside scoop on what’s new at RTR Vehicles?
Turns out that there is quite a lot happening in the RTR Lab for the 2025 calendar year. Currently at the RTR Lab, all the drift cars for Vaughn Gittin Jr., James Deane, and Ben Hobson are being torn down and completely overhauled for this 2025 Formula Drift season. The cars are down to their tube chassis and raw carbon-fiber body panels, and they are being reassembled piece by piece.
While walking the shop floor you can’t help but notice the wide array of custom Mustangs from Vaughn’s personal collection on display here. The lineup starts with the first RTR Mustang ever conceptualized by Vaughn which was also a car that debuted at SEMA for the company roughly some 15 years ago. That was followed by a dark blue RTR Mustang deemed to be his son Gunner’s car. Vaughn’s first son will eventually have this car when he’s of the age to drive. It was also one of the concept cars that helped launch RTR.
The next Mustang in line needed no introduction since everyone seems to know aboutthe infamous RTR-X. If you haven’t heard of the RTR-X, it’s the result of Vaughn’s collaboration with Speedhunters on a heavily modified 1969 Mustang fastback – along with tons of aftermarket goodies to make this Mustang among the most unique in the entire world. The last Mustang to cap off the row of display cars was Vaughn’s first competitive Formula Drift race car. This Gen-1 S197 sports the original Falken Tire livery and was really one of his first drift cars that not only started his rise to fame in Formula Drift, but truly one of the only American cars that competed in a Japanese-vehicle-dominated sport.
A couple more significant Mustangs near that the first row included none other than Mr.Dan Neve’s new giveaway car for his “Cruise for a Cause” campaign. This custom RTR Spec-2 is featured in black, pink and purple – matching the Cruise for a Cause colors sporting some Anderson composite carbon parts and RTR goodies throughout. This thing has a VMP supercharger, custom seats and much more. You can enter for a chance to win this exact car by going to cruise4acause.org and purchasing some tickets.
Parked directly behind Dan's giveaway car is also none other than Vaughn’s personal Spec-5 RTR Mustang, featuring a wide-body design fabricated by the RTR team. Speaking of the Spec-5, this new 2025 RTR offering was just announced at their in-house championship celebration, with Vaughn showing off a quick rendering of the design (which can also be found with a brief outline on their website). We were able to get a sneak peek at the car while at the shop, but we can’t show or say anything just yet about it. What we can say about it is that we’re sure fans, enthusiasts, and customers will be blown away with what RTR has in the works for this car!
The last notable Mustang we can’t forget to mention here is the RTR-C. The RTR-C was probably the first all-carbon-fiber Mustang that people know about and it was built in-house by Vaughn and his team to take to SEMA. He parted ways with the car for a while and recently the previous owner contacted Vaughn about selling it back to him -- knowing the significance it held to the company. Vaughn thought it was a great idea and it has finally made its way back to RTR after many years.
Part of RTR’s shop is for actual builds done in-house, which are called “Built by RTR”vehicles. Customers are able to send their newly purchased Mustang down to RTR and have it rebuilt with custom RTR parts in-house by the team. Also, certain dealerships currently work with RTR to have Spec-2 and Spec-3 cars built specifically for them to be sold right from the actual ordering dealership as an RTR Mustang. While attending the RTR Lab we spotted a 60th anniversary S650 Mustang on the lift undergoing a transformation into an RTR Spec-2. (Meaning an already unique car has just become that much more unique!)
With all the Mustangs on-site waiting for their RTR conversions – or as RTR likes to say, “From stock to Ready to Rock,” – a new-for-2025 colored Mustang, Molten Magenta Metallic, was on its way to being finished off as an RTR Spec-2. When it comes to colors; RTR also has recently offered a paint-to-sample program offering a wide variety of colors from not only their own custom palette, but to also provide customers with the option of bringing in whatever color sample they may have that can be painted on the new S650. One of the “paint to sample” cars was hanging out at the shop waiting to be delivered to a customer and it was done in none other than SVT’s famed Mystichrome. Now that is a spectacular color to see in person!
We’d like to extend a huge “thank you” to RTR for having us visit the Lab. More specifically Joshua Hipp, Lexi Paddock and Vaughn Gittin Jr. himself for making it possible for us to come and get an inside look at their operations. There is so much getting ready to unfold for RTR during this 2025 season that we can’t wait to experience it with you.
FORD PERFORMANCE PHOTOS / COURTESY JOE DELADVITCH
