Roush Performance's founder and owner, Jack Roush, made his name in racing and is currently the co-owner of the Nascar team Roush Fenway Racing. Although he worked at Ford in the 1960s, racing is where Roush developed his loyalty to the Blue Oval. Throughout his career, Roush has sold parts developed on his race cars, and that led to forming Roush Performance in 1995. Since then, the company has been best known for its editions of the Ford Mustang but also supplies customers with tuning packages, appearance packages, suspension packages, supercharger systems, and performance crate engines.
While Rous is best known for modified Ford Mustangs, there are other models the company has its name on or has helped to build. The back catalog for Roush is vast, but these are our favorites.
1. Jack Roush's Personal Stage 3 Ford Mustang
By 2012, Roush had been working with the fifth-generation Ford Mustang for seven years. That meant there was quite a lot in the parts catalog for Jack Roush's personal car, and most of it ended up on there. He had it styled based on his old 1969 Boss 429 and a P-51 Mustang. As well as suspension and bodywork upgrades, it was fitted with a Stage 3 supercharging kit to up the horsepower from 420 to an, outlandish at the time, 624 horsepower. Jack Roush's passion for aircraft and the P-51 Mustang, in particular, is something that will show up again in this list.
2. Ford F-150 5.11 Tactical Edition
Roush is also well known for its F-150 models, and the 5.11 Tactical Edition adds some flavor to the 2020 Ford F-150. 5.11 is a California-based company that specializes in tactical equipment for military, law enforcement, and public safety personnel. The 5.11 Tactical Edition does border on the cheesy as it comes with a bunch of 5.11 gear that includes a "tactical pen." Still, the custom grille, flared fenders, custom badging, Fox 2.0 Performance Series suspension system, black 20-inch wheels on off-road tires, and supercharged 5.0-liter V8 engine pushing out 650 hp and 610 lb-ft of torque is pure badassery.
3. De Tomaso P72
De Tomaso recently made a welcome return to the automotive world with the Italian company's P72 supercar that pays homage to the 1960s era one-of-a-kind Shelby De Tomaso P70. Traditionally, De Tomaso models have been exotic Italian supercars with American muscle under the hood, and the P72 is no exception. It packs a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 tuned by Roush to lay down 700 hp and 608 lb-ft of torque with 91 octane fuel while revving up to a 7,500 rpm redline. It also has a "symphonic exhaust system" as De Tomaso believes the sound of American V8s has become "homogenous." With the P72, the Italian company wants to replicate the noise of naturally aspirated 1960s American muscle cars.
4. Wade Kawasaki's Gulf Liveried Stage 3 Ford Mustang
This one-of-a-kind "track-capable daily driver," was built in 2019 for former SEMA chairman and head of Legendary Companies, Wade Kawasaki. It uses Roush's Stage 3 kit that includes a supercharger, cold-air intake, and remapped ECU, upping the output of the 5.0-liter V8 to 710 hp and 610 lb-ft of torque. It also features Roush's active exhaust as well as carbon-fiber aero components by Roush and SpeedKore. Speedkore also took care of the retro paint scheme while the 20-inch chromed wheels are by Wheel Vintiques and designed to evoke the original Ford GT40.
5. 'Old Crow' Ford Mustang GT
'Old Crow' is a P-51 Mustang flown by Colonel Bud Anderson across 116 combat missions during World War II. The Roush Performance and Ford homage car was built as a one-off for auction in order to fund aviation programs that help prepare the next generation of American pilots. As well as the "Old Crow" paint scheme and badging, the fighter-plane inspired Mustang boasts 710 hp and 610 lb-ft of torque using a Roush Performance cold air induction system and X pipe on top of a custom active exhaust system from Ford Performance.
6. Maxlider Brothers 1966 Ford Bronco
Maxlider Brothers Customs is a restoration company that specializes in classic Ford Broncos, and is most notable for converting the two-door SUV into a four-door off-roader with three rows of seating. For this special restomod Bronco, Maxlider Brothers partnered with Roush to provide power for the four-door conversion. The result was a supercharged 5.0-liter Coyote V8 making 670 hp. That's 6.3 times the amount of power this truck made in 1966.
7. Ken Block's Hoonicorn
When it comes to outrageous cars and spectacular feats of driving skill, Ken Block is hard to beat. One of our favorite Ken Block cars is the all-wheel-drive 1965 Ford Mustang powered by Jack Roush and Robert Yates' Nascar, IMSA, and FIA race car engine company. The Hoonicorn debuted with a 6.7-liter Roush Yates Nascar-spec V8 making 845 hp and 720 lb-ft of torque. That wasn't enough for Block, and later on, he added two massive turbochargers to the already huge V8 before tuning it for methanol fuel. The result is an insane 1,400 hp delivered from the crank. According to Block himself: "When I say that this is the absolute most frightening thing I've ever driven, I'm not exaggerating. At all."
8. Roush Mustang JackHammer
The JackHammer is a 200 unit special edition named for Roush's founder, and along with supercharged power, it comes with upgraded aero and suspension components. The headline is the power, though. The 2018 Mustang's 5.0-liter V8 is given the Twin Vortices Series (TVS) 2650 Supercharger package that needs extra cooling and a specially made engine cover to deliver 710 hp and 610 lb-ft of torque consistently.
The spec sheet is lengthy, and includes adjustable performance coilover shock absorbers, heavy-duty half-shafts, and a different strut tower brace and stretches all the way to a Roush branded license plate and frame.
9. Revology 1967 Shelby GT500
If you have a spare quarter of a million dollars lying around, you could do a lot worse than spend it on a Revology 1967 Shelby GT500. It's an odd car to appear on this list, but the supercharged Ford Coyote 5.0-liter V8 engine is tuned by Roush, not Shelby.
For your $250,000+, you're getting more than a fearsome engine developing 600 hp and 475 lb-ft of torque, though. Revology pays astounding attention to detail with its restomods, and while it looks every inch a 1967 Shelby GT500, it's got all the refinement and performance of a modern Mustang... and then some. It's also achingly beautiful.
10. Roush F-150 Nitemare
We love the lunacy of the street performance trucks that were all the rage in the 1980s and 1990s. The F-150 Nitemare captures that 20th-century spirit but with modern power and performance. A full 650 hp and 610 lb-ft of torque from the supercharged V8 lets people know what's up at the lights when it hits 60 mph in just 3.9 seconds. The F-150 Nitemare also sits low on a sports suspension and is heavily stylized with graphics and things like accent lighting on the front grill, a dual-tip performance exhaust system, and 22-inch black wheels.
11. Jack Roush Edition Ford Mustang
If a Shelby GT500 is a little too vanilla for your tastes and you happen to have around $90,000 to spare, it might not be too late to get one of the 50 Jack Roush Edition Mustangs the company is building. At this point, it's the ultimate Roush Mustang and generates a staggering 775 horsepower and 670 lb-ft of torque. Because something like that deserves to be heard, it also features a new active exhaust with multiple settings ranging from "don't scare the neighbors too much" to "set off old car alarms." As well as the hyper-tuned engine, extra cooling, and a beefed-up differential, the Jack Roush Edition Mustang also has the Ford MagneRide suspension system custom calibrated and comes with a manual transmission if you want it.
12. 1995 Roush Mustang
The car that started it all is a rarity in Roush Stage 3 spec. Jack Roush's original idea was to sell a "kit of parts" to dealers to install on customers' cars, but he got no takers. Roush took it upon himself to open his own installment centers and offered the Roush Mustang in three stages. Only a few hundred Roush 1995 Mustangs exist, and of those, only five are believed to be Stage 3 models.
Stage 1 was a visual package, while Stage 2 added a handling package that included a custom rear anti-roll bar, and Koni adjustable struts fitted with Roush front and rear springs. Stage 3 then added a 65-mm throttle body, a custom three-piece Roush dual plenum intake assembly, a high flow air filter, and a Roush fuel rail. That gave the 1995 Mustang an extra 47 horsepower, but customers could get a little more by ordering either aluminum or CNC ported cast iron heads.