RTR Vehicles brings Mystichrome back to the Mustang

In the car worldsometimes money just isn’t enough. Certain supercar manufacturers will vet you before they’ll approve you to buy their product. Others, like Ford, will make you wait a long time for the return of certain beloved models, like the Mustang Mach 1 or the Bronco. It’s been two decades since Ford produced a 2004 SVT Mustang Cobra in Mystichrome paint. Guess what? It still hasn’t added it back to the list of available colors. The good news is that RTR Vehicles has started offering the unique color-changing finish.

The Blue Oval sports a paint scheme similar to the 1996 Mustang SVT Cobra. Back then, it was called “Mystic,” and the color changed from black to purple to root beer brown, depending on the angle from which it was viewed.

For the 2004 Terminator Cobra, Ford’s Special Vehicles team worked with Alan Eggly, Ford’s North American color and trim director, DuPont, and Flex Products, Inc. of California to develop an updated formula. The resulting paint is filled with gleaming aluminum flakes and Flex’s ChromaFlair interference pigments, tiny particles made up of five thin layers of colorless film. Each particle acts as a prism. According to a press release about Mystichrome Cobra, “White light reflects from the core layer and is then broken down into visible colors by the outer layers. As the viewing angle changes, so does the visible color. The resulting color is controlled by precise variations in the prism layers, measured in atoms: The thinnest ChromaFlair pigment changes from gold to silver to light blue; the thickest pigment changes from silver to green to violet-blue.”

DuPont started with green-violet ChromaFlair pigments, which transitioned from bright green to blue and finally to purple. They mixed these pigments with black and green to make the final color deep, rich, and balanced. To them, Mystichrome looked like a bright piece of metallic topaz that would turn cobalt blue, then royal purple, and finally deep agate black. Eggly coined the name Mystichrome because the rainbow of colors reminded him of the blue coating that high temperatures left on chrome exhaust manifolds.

Officially, Ford built just 1,000 Mystichrome Cobra coupes and convertibles for the 2004 model year (although at least two enthusiast sites indicate they built more than 10.) Now, RTR (Ready to Rock) Vehicles is once again offering Mystichrome in its expanded palette.

Before you get excited about having them paint your S550 GT, know that the colors in this range are only available on Mustang RTR models from 2024 onwards. The standard extended palette paint option is priced at $8,995; Mystichrome, part of the premium paint line, is priced at $14,995.

Why relaunch Mystichrome now? Vaughn Gittin Jr, founder of RTR Vehicles, Ultra4 racer and World Drift Series champion, summed it up perfectly: “It’s been taking too long, and someone’s got to do it!”