You Are the Wind Beneath My Mustang; Former Wings West entrepreneurs soar from compacts to muscle cars.

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

** Ernie Bunnell and Billy Longfellow took the craft of making extraneous wings and curb-scraping air dams to a high art. They popularized cosmetic aerodynamics so completely, it's near impossible to drive more than three blocks in Southern California without seeing a Honda Civic, Acura Integra or Mitsubishi Eclipse with a svelte, stylish, wind-sucking canard bolted on. They connected, perhaps better than anyone else ever had, with what the young male sport compact car owner most loved to spend his paychecks on-style.

Bunnell and Longfellow founded Wings West in 1993, their design and business acumen combining to cloak a nation of sport compact cars in righteous wind resistance. Five years ago, in the sort of high-business maneuver most of us can't grasp, an aggressive outside firm bought the company, then hired Bunnell and Longfellow to keep doing what they were doing anyway, which they did for five more years while the ailerons kept spitting out the back door of the factory.

This year they broke away from the company they founded and launched their own enterprises, the first results of which are these two cars. It was a leap not only of business, but of artistic media as well, from the safety of the sport compact market they knew so well to the new challenges of adorning big domestic muscle cars like the new Ford Mustangs you see here.

"At Wings West we had the sport compact aftermarket covered,'' said Bunnell. "We had a kit for literally every compact import you could imagine. It kind of peaked in 2000. So when the Mustang opportunity came up it was a clean slate to work with, a brand-new body style with a retro look.'' They got a body-in-white and a pair of early Mustangs off the assembly line from which to work.

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