Sunday, June 16, 2013

Restoring the ultimate Mustang

Greetings everyone,
From time to time I lose my way and go off in another direction...this is one of those times. In everybodys lives there are special times. One of my special times was finding and restoring this very special piece of Americana. There were 2380 of these cars built in 1966, of that only 30 were painted blue with white stripes. These cars did not go thru the normal assembly line, instead they were shipped to a hangar at the Los Angeles airport had hand assembled by a small group of very talented people. They turned a normal v8 289 in a class winning B production race car. It won just about every race it entered back in  the sixties. For $4600.00 you got a car that was rude, crude , unbelievably fast and a handful to drive. If you loved fast cars, this is one you wanted. I found this car
in a garage about 15 miles from where I live. It had been sitting there for 15 years all apart on a cement floor rotting away.  Everything that originally came with the car was still there. It took 12 months to bring this car back to better than new condition.  It won every car show that it was entered in, took it to all the cruise nights, had a blast with it for 15 years. Alot of extra things were done in the restoration,the glove box was sent to California to Carroll Shelby to sign when he was still alive.
The motor was built with race specifications that dynoed out to over 500 H.P. The historical plates were purchased from an antique dealer in Chicago. In one pic you'll see an autograph from Camee Edlebrock who I was with at Watkins Glen and has the same car. The following photos will show how this went from junk to perfection. The motor that you see in the photos, the one on the passengers side floor and the one that looks brand new is the same motor...original. There is a picture of the registrations..the 1995 was current when the photo was taken, the 1973 registration was the last year the first owner had it on the road. Actually 22 years separate the registrations. I thought that was kind of special so i left it on the window which was the original also. I just added a couple of pictures, the first one of the rear window...made of Lexan and weighs less than 4 pounds. The other picture is of the interior, the front and rear seats were original and not touched. The original tach which didnt work was sent out to get rebuilt.

















































22 comments:

  1. A very beautiful restoration of this mythic car, a motor as everyone would like to have in his car ! Great ! .
    Cheers .

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  2. That's true beauty! Hard work paid off restoring it.

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  3. A Simply beautiful car Captain, Looks like you had to do some serious body repair work in addition to the mechanical stuff, very impressive.

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    1. Thanks Smillie...the car was taken down to the shell and all rust and holes were eliminated, not with fiberglass but with new fenders and floors

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  4. My goodness Captain, that is a splendid thing to have had the opportunity to work on - absolutely tremendous!

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    1. Thanks Michael..the car was an absolute blast to drive...scary as hell, got your blood pumping.

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  5. Damned !! when I was young, it was my preferred car !!
    Yours is absolutely beautiful, splendid, etc......

    An impressive work you have made !

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  6. Replies
    1. Every gearhead has their favorite car...this was mine ...and with all the cars I've had, nothing else even comes close.

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  7. A true classic Captian! Wonderful rebuild and with Shelby's mark on it, perfect!!!

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  8. Richard, that is an amazing restoration job. Truly amazing - I like the fastback version the best. Enjoy! Dean

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  9. That is a true gift to have the skills to do this, Amazing Captain!!!

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