Cyber Stallions: More Than Meets the Eye for Muscular Mustang Cars

If you judge MuscularMustangs.com (www.muscularmustangs.com) solely by the action on its forums, you might conclude the site isn't too popular. You'd be dead wrong, however, because brewing all around this message board is a flourishing site, jam-packed with Mustang news, information, and photos.

"I think many people see that our forum isn't overly active and assume the site has few visitors, but in reality, that isn't the case at all," says Michael Lawlor, who with his brother George Pycik, cofounded the site in April 2004. A careful look at the statistics tells the real story: as of July 2008, MuscularMustangs.com has almost 3,200 registered members.

What makes MuscularMustangs.com a success is good old-fashioned hard work. Building on the brothers' experiences from their first Stang site-a drag racing site call Prostangs.com that's archived on MuscularMustangs.com-the two share responsibility for keeping the site current and relevant. "I built the background structure for the site, hand-coded it, and do the majority of the frequent site updates such as news, videos, and image gallery additions," Lawlor says. "George is great at writing, so he did all of the history articles in the Database section and wrote a number of other articles."

Pycik was responsible for getting Muscular Mustangs.com some of its best content as well. While researching on a New Zealand Mustang site (www.nzstangs.com), he came across an article written by Holly Clark, daughter of the late Phil Clark, the man who designed the Mustang emblem
and was part of the Mustang 1 prototype design team. Pycik got permission from Ms. Clark to post her article on MuscularMustangs.com, which led to an exclusive interview with her. Now Muscular Mustangs.com has an entire section dedicated to Phil Clark, with Ms. Clark's original article, the interview, Mustang 1 sketches, and more. She also was able to connect MuscularMustangs.com with John and Ashley Force, and soon after, the site published interviews with both of these drag-racing legends.

But interviews with famous people aren't MuscularMustangs.corn's only attraction. Lawlor puts extensive effort into the News section. Each news item includes a "Discuss this topic" link that brings you directly to a thread dedicated to that topic on the forums.

The Gallery's 1,500 images are divided into three categories: Ford Motor Company Pictures, which contain press photos of all the latest Mustangs; Tuner Mustang Pictures, which offers images from the likes of Steeda, Saleen, and Roush; and Drag Racing and Car Shows, which features photos shot by Lawlor, Pycik, and the site's visitors. Although the press and tuner photos aren't exclusive, the Gallery has "turned out to be a real draw," Lawlor says. "Believe it or not, the Image Gallery gets more than double the views that our home page gets, on average."

Muscular Mustangs also provides a huge Database section that features facts, figures, and statistics for every model year back to 1964. "The Database started as a simple idea: To compile in one place as much technical information and history about the Ford Mustang as possible," Lawlor says. "The information comes from far and wide- technical data from Ford Motor Company, memory, old magazines, and visitor submissions.

MuscularMustangs.com's Maintenance section consists of a handful of basic technical articles, and a Videos section contains more than 40 clips, including commercials from Ford, coverage from the Barrett-Jackson auctions, and more. Elsewhere, the site offers free e-mail accounts, screen saver and wallpaper downloads an events calendar, and more.

With so much on tap, it's relatively easy to overlook some of MuscularMustang.com's best stuff. There are two ways to prevent this: First, pay attention to the "New Stuff" box at the top right of the home page. Second, use the Site Map link at the bottom of MuscularMustang.com's main page, and pay close attention to the links under Miscel¬laneous Articles.
MuscularMustang.com's biggest challenge is to stay creative. If the past is any indication, it'll easily succeed.