When it comes to demo vehicles, MTX is one of the leaders in building super cool, yet totally functional vehicles to display their audio equipment. And a perfect example of this is freshly created 2001 Ford Escape.
This big bad red ride is decked out with all the exterior trimmings like Nerf bars, grille guard, tail light guards, and rear bumper guard by WAAG, KC Hi Lites off road lights, Code 3 light bar, Yakima roof carrier, various Streetglow neon lights and strobes, Hi Lift jack mounted on roof carrier, and custom tribal vinyl graphics. Of course stock tires and wheels would be totally out of place on this truck, so they ditched the stock rubber and rims for 15" Weld Racing Stone Crushers mounted on BF Goodrich All Terrain TA 235/75 R15. The vehicle also features a 2" suspension lift by Fabtech and includes Fabtech performance shocks to give it a more menacing stance. The engine was left pretty stock, with the exception of a Gibson performance exhaust for a lower growl.
But the real thunder is on the inside of the Escape.
The stock head unit was replaced with a Kenwood KVT-910DVD with flip up monitor, giving folks in the front a bird's eye view of the video screen. Video switching is done internally in the Kenwood KVT910-DVD hide away unit, which was placed under the driver's seat. An Icon-TV 13" flat screen monitor (M133) was built into a custom fabricated "bridge" made up of MDF, fleece, resin, fiberglass matting, and steel reinforcement bars that are welded directly to the body of the vehicle.
Taking care of the front stage are MTX Thunder6000 6 1/2" separates (T6.6) mounted into an MDF baffle and placed in the stock door locations. The doors were covered inside and out with Noise Killer extreme sound damping material. In the rear of the truck, MTX Thunder6000 6 1/2" separates (T6.6) were used as rear speakers and were mounted in a custom fiberglass panel mounted to the C pillar of the vehicle. The panel is vinyled to match the stock gray interior. Another similar panel trims out the rear cargo area around the subwoofer enclosures and amp rack. It houses another set of MTX Thunder6000 6 1/2" separates (T6.6) that are used for display purposes to provide optimal sound when the rear cargo door of the vehicle is open.
To make sure all of the sound in the truck was front and center, a single MTX Thunder6000 6 1/2" speaker (T6.6) was mounted in a custom fabricated fiberglass panel that fits under the dash in front of the center console. The panel was constructed of MDF, fleece, resin, and fiberglass matting, then sanded and painted red to match the exterior color of the vehicle.
So you can't have al of those cool speakers handling the mids and high frequencies, so what about some big bass in your face? To that end, it was decided that 8 - MTX Thunder6000 subwoofers (T61244A) were to be mounted in two separate sealed 6 cubic foot fiberglass enclosures made up of MDF, fleece, resin, and fiberglass matting that are shaped to look as if they are a mountain of subwoofers. The enclosures were sanded and painted red to match the rest of the vehicles stylin' exterior..
You can't have a boatload of speakers with out some serious power behind them. The folks at MTX decided to use 2 - MTX Thunder801D monoblock, 800-watt amplifiers to power the subwoofers (1 on the left side subwoofers and 1 on the right) and 3 - MTX Thunder342 two-channel, 340-watt amplifiers are powering the front stage, rear stage, center channel, and cargo area speakers. That brings the total wattage to a staggering 2620 watts @ 4 ohms.
Connecting all of this hardware together was an easy task for Streetwires 14 gauge speaker wire was used throughout the vehicle.along with Streetwires Zero Noise 3 (ZN3) series RCA interconnects's were used throughout the vehicle. Rounding out the wire package is Streetwires red and silver 1/0 and 8-gauge power and ground wire were used in the entire vehicle.
The fine folks at MTX would like to send out some special thanks to Reagan Swan, Tim Woolston, all the guys at Unlimited Audio, Joel Wood, Tim Armstrong of Creative Customs, Scott Harris, Fabtech, Icon-TV, V-Racing, Weld Racing, BF Goodrich, Streetglow, KC Hi-Lites, WAAG, Hi-Lift, Gibson, Matworks, Autometer, B&I, Code 3, Street Scene and Meguiars
Keep a close look out for this rad Escape, as it will be touring at various shows all across the country during 2003!