Happy Birthday, Mustang!

Sunday, March 8 was, among other things: (1) daylight savings day; (2) about 65 degrees, sunny, with a pleasant cool breeze in the bay area; and (3) the 45th birthday of the Ford Mustang.

To celebrate, I took my lovely wife, and a picnic lunch in a cooler, and joined a group of about 60 other mustang guys (and a few girls) around the Bay area for a Mustang Cruise. It was fantastic. We drove through miles of winding mountain roads, a long line of beefy sounding engines and the smell of burning gasoline snaking dropping gears like bad habits and snaking around occasional road bikers. It must have been a sight to see, when out of the blue, 60 bright, noisy cars, roar past you! Here are some pictures from the event (most in the parking lot getting ready.. the road pictures mostly came out pretty badly).

In other News

I have an update for you. I finally received the Proglass Mystery 7 hood. It looks to be in good shape. I wish it was painted Redfire instead of Torch Red so I could just install it, but its not, so I can't. Its going to have to wait until I'm ready to get all the work done. Which still may be a little while considering the economy, cost, and other life circumstances that are putting this on the back burner of prioritization - for now.

In the meanwhile, I have all the parts I need now, except for the ducktail spoiler, which I will get when I'm ready - no rush. I also managed to find a very very special part that will really set my project apart from any other '67 tribute project I've seen before... yes, I will blog on it in due time, my friends. Bonus for anyone who can guess (and there are some very subtle clues in some of my earlier posts) - comment away (if you know - and this means you, Robin and I think Dan - don't give away the secret!).

That's all for now!

Lowered and Looking Good

Lucy's got a new stance. No longer does she look like a sports car body mounted on a 4x4 chassis. This is something that has bothered me for the almost four years I've had the Mustang; I'm glad its fixed.

No long entry tonight, just a couple before and after pictures. Nothing too exciting, unfortunately, just driveway shots.

Before, left side

After, left side

Before, right side

After, right side

Looks good, right? Handles a lot differently, too. Anyway, here's a couple more pictures, just for fun.

Obligatory shot of her rear end - meaty, mmmm!

That's it for now. In one sense, the project is close to being done. All I have to do is drop it--and lots of parts--off with the shop, wait a month, and voila! But that will still be some time, as I have some other priorities right now (like paying back uncle sam for the money we "borrowed" this year, and finishing our new house).

In the meanwhile, my next several entries will focus on individual pieces of the project. I have one especially exciting element in the works... that'll probably be my last entry. That way you have to read all of them... mwuahhh ha ha ha ha ha. <-- (that was an evil laugh)

Lucy's New Shoes (Part 2)

Short one tonight. Here are some pictures of the CS67s all loaded up on my pony. A little information is useful here. The front wheels are 18 x 8.5, which means 18 inches in diameter and 8.5 inches in width. The back wheels are 18 x 9.5. This gives the car what's called a "staggered" look, with the back tires looking heftier and more aggressive.

The fronts are wrapped in Toyo Proxes T1 Rs size 255/45/18. The back rubber is meatier, measuring 285/40/18 (these numbers signify the height/diameter of the tire, in mm, followed by the width of the tire as a percentage of the height, followed by the diameter of the open area of the tire; so 285/40/18 is 285 mm high, 40% of that (114 mm) wide, and fits on 18" wheels). The Toyos are basically a performance street tire, much softer rubber than typical tires, with a tread pattern optimized for grip, but not as soft as drag radials, which would wear too quickly on a daily driver. As it is, the Toyos are rated for a shorter life than, for example, the stock Pirelli tires (which are 235/55/17, by the way).

Enough of the mumbo jumbo. First, a few of what the movie professionals call "establishing shots."

This is one of the fronts next to the stock Bullits.

A comparison of the width of the new rubber to the stock tires. Big difference!

Even bigger difference on the rears. These are crazy wide!

Ok, now for the important stuff! Here's a before picture in my driveway...

And with her new shoes!

Couple pics from different angles now.

This picture shows how big the rear tires are (the better to grip with!). Compare it to the stock tires below.

That's it for now, except for a quick note: one of the bothersome things about these S197s is that they come jacked up like a 4 x 4. Nothing shows that better than a night picture, because the flash fills the wheel well, whereas during the day you just see shadows and it doesn't look as bad. So here's a picture doing double duty.

The wheel wells are definitely too big, or at least too high. I'm having the car lowered over the long weekend, which will make the stance a lot cleaner, the way it really should look. I'll post more pics then.

Lucy's New Shoes (Part 1)

"I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty."

- Imelda Marcos

Application of the scientific method (formulate hypothesis, experiment, analyze data, draw conclusions, subject to replication and peer review) has conclusively proven that women are crazy. I have personal experience with this phenomenon in part because I'm married to one. Like all women, my lovely and otherwise rational wife gets weak in the knees at the sight of a pair of "cute" sandals, or boots that look to me somehow like they once belonged to pirates. But I'm no expert.

Luckily for me, Lucy (the Mustang, folks) is pretty low-key when it comes to being fancy. She has happily trod upon her stock 17" Bullits for almost four years now, never complaining or revealing herself to be jealous of her sister Stangs sporting showy, chromed, 20-inch kicks. She and I would be happy to continue riding on her stockers were this project not in the works, but since it is, it was time for an upgrade. Yes, friends, Lucy has new wheels!

Like everything about this project, I chose the wheels to give the best combination of a retro cue (specifically to the 1967 Shelby G.T. 350, of course) while still looking good on the S197 body. In 1967, the standard wheel that came with the Shelbys was steel-rimmed with a Ford/Shelby cover. More popular, though, were the Kelsey-Hayes wheels and the 10-spoke Shelby wheels. Both wheels are definitely cool (and the raised white lettering on tires in the 60s can't be beat for that classic muscle car look), but making the decision in my case was easy. Although there was a wheel sort-of similar to the 5-spoke Kelsey-Hayes version, it wasn't really a design modeled after that. On the other hand, Carol Shelby himself has come out with a line of vintage wheels that are modern takes on classic designs--including the 10-spoke Shelby GT wheels! They're called CS67s, and they're hot!

(for a much larger version that shows a lot more detail, CLICK HERE)

I won't be the first Mustang enthusiast running these beauties. A couple guys at some of the Mustang forums I frequent have put them on, with great results (I hope they don't mind me borrowing some of their pictures...) All-in-all, though, they're a pretty rare sight, which I think is cool. Below are some pictures of the 10-spokes on 1967 G.T. 350s, then the CS67s on some S197s. I think you'll see what a wonderful recreation Carol Shelby has done.

Now for some pictures of the CS67s. This first Mustang belongs to a forum member by the name of Graypny. He's done an excellent job with his car, also doing a '67 tribute, and its a big inspiration to me. More pictures of his beauty (also, larger, more detailed versions; I'm limited to a certain size here, but its worth checking out the full size) can be found HERE.

Next up is a beautiful Vista Blue 2006 GT owned by a guy who goes by 05fordGT. I had to do a couple of his pics here. Just like the Mineral Gray Mustang above, this car has a lot of the same details and look I'm going after, and I've been admiring it for a while. Great inspiration. Again, full-size versions (and additional pictures) can be found HERE.

Love this picture, with the fighter jets!

Finally, here is an image I found using Google (I don't actually know who the car belongs to) that shows what the wheels look like at speed. Pretty cool, I like the "deep dish" kind of look they give (sort of like the spokes are recessed around a deep lip).

So the big news is, Lucy got her new shoes tonight after work. The bad news is that night pictures just don't come out well, at least not using a relatively simple point-n-click digital camera with no manual shutter lag adjustment. So it would do neither you nor I any good to post the pictures I took tonight, and wouldn't give justice to Lucy or the CS67s. So, I will take pictures tomorrow in the light and do some comparison shots and whatnot. So "Lucy's New Shoes (Part 2)" should be right around the corner.

Ok, I'll give you a teaser... btw, check out the meaty rubber wrapping these things!! More on that next time too...

The Muse

If in a few months you happen to be driving on a California highway and see a blur of red and silver and pure sex reeking of burnt rubber and snorting like an angry boar, and at a glance you happen to catch the above vanity plate even while it rapidly shrinks ahead of you, well, that'll be me. Its official: I am committed to this project, because this plate - which is now working its way through the California Department of Vehicles system, no doubt soon to be the pride of an industrious felon - will make no sense if I don't follow through with the project.

The Mustangs Of The 60s

In April 1964, on the heels of the end of WWII, Ford released the first production Mustang, which became an instant hit and established all kinds of sales records. The Mustang was the first so-called "pony car," an affordable, compact, sporty or performance-oriented auto usually characterized by a relatively long hood. The release of the Mustang ushered in the first era of the muscle car race, which saw the release over an 8-year period of such classics as the Pontiac GTO, Chevy Camaro, Dodge Challenger, and Plymouth Roadrunner, in addition to, of course, a variety of Mustangs.

Nearly fifty years later, it's a different world, and the relationships we have with our cars has changed. I'm a child of the 70s - almost the 80s - and so I can't pretend to know what it was like dreaming of buying, much less owning, a classic 60s muscle car. What I can do is appreciate what it might have been like to live at a time when there was "no replacement for displacement," horsepower was as American as apple pie, and no one was interested in impressing the anonymous masses with overpriced import luxury cars or ugly inefficient bubbles marketed as the answer to our modern environmental guilt.

To this end, I get a real kick out of Mustang advertisements of the '60s. They speak of a pure and innocent pride of ownership somehow devoid of the modern materiality inherent in today's high-end but utterly uninteresting "luxury" cars. I mean, does it get any better than "The Mustang Pledge"?:

I Will Not...

I will not sell tickets to all the people who want to ride in my '67 Mustang.

I will not keep the neighbors up all night by playing my Mustang's stereo tape player.

I will not yawn when people talk about the performance of other cars.

I Will...

I will tell the truth about my Mustang's low price and not let people think I payed extra for bucket seats, vinyl interior, plush carpeting and all those other no-cost extras.

I will love, honor and obey the Convenience Control Panel when the lights tell me to fasten seat belts and release the parking brake.

I will stick to my diet even though my Mustang's Tilt-Away steering wheel is so adjustable.

[And my personal favorite...]

I will keep the "helpless female" look by shifting manually only when I'm driving alone. All other times I will let the SelectShift work automatically.

The 1967 Shelby G.T. 350

Starting in 1965, racing and Mustang legend Caroll Shelby, working in conjunction with Ford, began modifying production Mustangs and selling them under the Shelby G.T. name. Starting in 1968, the word "Cobra" was added to the moniker, but the 1965-1967 Shelbys were simply known as "Shelby G.T." Most significantly, Shelbys received tweaked "Hi-Po" engines putting out significantly more power than their production-level counterparts.

After its release, the Mustang's design stayed the same for three years, until 1967, when Ford tweaked its look to create a beefier and more aggressive style. The Shelbys, too, got a makeover. Besides a different look, Caroll Shelby introduced for the first time the Shelby G.T. 500, to go alongside the G.T. 350 he had been producing the previous two years.

The G.T 500 had a monstrous 428 cid 4-valve V8 engine putting out a mind-blowing (especially for the time) 400 rear wheel horsepower (Ford conservatively rated the engine at 355, but dynometer tests show otherwise), and featured a padded roll bar and racing harness. It was truly a race-inspired car. The G.T. 350 was more gentile, rated at 271 horsepower made by a 289 cid 4V V8. The exterior of the two models was identical except for the substitution of "500" for "350" on the badges and rocker panel stripe.

Like with the production Mustangs, ads for the Shelbys highlighted the excitement of owning a high-performance vehicle.

(Click on any of these to see a larger version)

Why I'm Paying Tribute To The 350 Instead Of The 500

If the G.T. 500 was "the nuts" of '67 Mustangs, you might wonder why I'm choosing to pay tribute to the "lesser" 350 model. The answer is pretty simple: its a matter of respect. My 2005 Mustang GT is a 289 cid, 3-valve V8, so the engine is a lot closer to the 350 than it is to the 500's engine. And the 4.6L S197 engine is currently putting out 300 HP at the crank, about 265 at the rear wheels (after some light modifications, my Mustang actually makes about 300 HP at the rear wheels today), which is, again, a lot closer to the 350 than it is to the 500. Moreover, in 2007, Shelby built a new G.T. 500, which you may occasionally see on the road today (it shares the S197 body, albeit with some modifications).

Since my Mustang is not a Shelby at all, it may seem a little silly to draw this distinction, but to me it makes sense. In a way, the Shelby 350 is a more "direct" ancestor of my S197; if I were lucky enough to own a current-model GT 500 and were doing a tribute project, I would, of course, be paying tribute to the remarkable Shelby G.T. 500.

As a side note here, you'll probably notice a theme as I progress with this. I want to be very careful not to identify my car as something its not. My goal is to pay tribute to the G.T. 350, not to pretend that my car is one. People have different feelings about this, but I'm of the school that says you don't stick Cobra emblems on a GT, or GT emblems on a V6, or "Supercharged" stickers on a naturally-aspirated engine, etc. There's a joke performance-car guys make about those civics and such you see with a billion stickers all over them, like "NOS" (Nitrous Oxide) - "every sticker adds 5 horsepower!" Heh.

In sum, I want to avoid being a "poser" of any sort. I want to ensure that I'm giving a nod to a vehicle and era I admire, rather than pretending to have a modern version of the same thing. Thus, for example, I've made the decision not to use any of the Shelby emblems on my vehicle, instead using standard Mustang emblems that describe my car, but placing them in appropriate locations to evoke the Shelby's emblems, if that makes sense.

For example, the Shelbys had this kick-ass emblem on the front fenders. They had similar emblems on the front grille and faux gas cap on the rear of the car. As cool as these emblems are, I'm not going to use them because my car is not a Shelby G.T. 350.

Instead, I'm going to use this Running Horse Logo. The fenders will be the "4.6" version, which accurately describes my car's engine (since I will be removing the "GT" badges, except for on the faux gas cap on the rear, I want to be sure to make it easy to tell its a V8 GT, rather than the V6, 4.0 Liter version).

Anyway, you'll see this same theme in some other choices I'm making.

The 1967 Shelby G.T. 350: Photos

OK, so you've read enough, time to get to the pictures. For this entry, I'm just going to post some of my favorite pictures showing some of the various features of the G.T. 350. The next several entries will each focus on a single particular feature, giving information about the feature when appropriate or interesting, and demonstrating how I intend to mimic the feature on my Mustang. I will show you the choices I'm making and give you my thought process behind each choice. The first example of this, of course, I've already done, describing the Proglass Mystery 7 hood in "The Idea (Part 2)."

Enjoy!