The Idea (Part 2)

Having revived the performance of my car's engine, I decided I'd also do something about the CDC Aggressive Chin Splitter than had been sitting in my various apartments, in a box and unpainted, for about two and a half years. I always intended to get it painted and installed, but just hadn't bothered, in part because I had become somewhat apathetic about my car.

I found a place to do the work, brought it in, and $150 later had a restyled front end. Came out nice, huh? (The splitter is the pointy "chin" that sticks out in the front of the car, below the license plate.) Here are some closer-up pictures:

Anyway, as I went to get the chin painted, I considered picking up a hood scoop to get done at the same time. When I bought my car in 2005, they didn't come with hood scoops, and while some aftermarket ones came out that I liked ok, I never jumped on that wagon. However, I always had in the back of my mind that I kind of liked the look. In maybe 2007, Ford started putting on hood scoops as part of an optional appearance package, which I thought was kind of cool. One thing that bothers me about all of these scoops, though, is that they're "non-functional," i.e., they're pretty much either taped or screwed onto the hood, purely for aesthetic purposes.

To make a hood scoop at least minimally "functional," you typically need to drill a series of holes under the scoop, so that cool air that the scoop traps gets pulled into the engine bay to cool the engine and get cooler air into the intake. The cooler the air, the better and more powerfully the engine will perform. But even better than this crude method (the results of which are highly questionable anyway) is to find an aftermarket hood with a built-in scoop. Some of these feature something called "ram air," which basically takes in air through the scoop and funnels it through a tunnel to come out directly over the air intake. Some people still think this is still questionably "functional," but you have to think that, to the extent these things help by bringing cooler air into the engine, the versions that direct the air to the exact right place have to work better, right?

Keeping these principles in mind, I began searching for a hood that was both functional and aesthetically pleasing to me. My primary resource was this thread: "Lets see your aftermarket hood".

Let me say, there are tons of aftermarket hoods, and many I like pretty well on other peoples' mustangs, but as I looked around, I wasn't finding something that was really the perfect form and function for me. I wanted something aggressive, but a little more understated than a giant, hulking scoop. I wasn't finding anything - until I came across this beauty:

This Mustang belongs to a guy named Chris, who I have spoken to on the phone. The hood is called the Proglass Mystery 7, and is a 67-style hood, i.e., one modeled on the 1967 Shelby GTs, and there's a great story behind it.

The Proglass Mystery 7 Hood

The hood you are looking at above is 1 of only 2 that were ever made. There is a reason for this.

For a short while, there was a company making aftermarket mustang parts called Fang Performance. One thing they made was a hood they called the "Mystery 7," which was based on the style of the 1967 Shelby GT hoods.

As the Fang Performance guys began to design this hood, there was a division among some of the decision-makers and craftsmen. One guy wanted to make the hood with "notches" that were typical of the 1967 Shelby hoods. Some of the other guys thought that, even though this would more closely mimic the style of the 1967s, it simply didn't go well with the lines of the 2005+ Mustang (btw, this body style is called the "S197," so now you'll know that if I ever say that - easier to say than 2005+, or 2005-2009 Mustangs or whatever). Well, the pro-notch guy was the one in charge, and his opinion eventually prevailed, and Fang started making these hoods with the notches. They didn't sell very well, and Fang eventually went out of business, selling a lot of the mouldings for their parts to a new company called Aeroform.

Here is a series of pictures that demonstrates the issue well (pulled from the thread I linked to above):

1. This is the front-view of a 1967 Shelby G.T. 350:

2. This is the Fang hood with the notches:

3. Here's a photoshop of what Fang should have done instead:

4. Finally, here's a picture of Chris' hood from the front:

As you can see, the notch-lines really break up the flow of the car, and are distracting. It looks far better on the S197 with just the straight hood lines, like every other hood that goes on these cars. (BTW, if you're interested, here's a short video a guy who put the Fang Mystery 7 on his car made.)

Well, one of Fang's fiberglass workers, who's very well known for his fiberglass skills, a guy in Indianapolis named Terry DeLong, left Fang and struck out on his own (either forming, or working for an outfit called Proglass, I'm not exactly sure). I guess he felt passionate about the notchless hood, because he created a moulding for one, and ultimately fabricated two hoods, giving them (from what I understand, at a very fair/low price) to two guys he knew, Chris (the sonic blue mustang above), and another guy, Tom. Soon after that, Terry began doing other things with his life, took up other interests, and stopped working with fiberglass. So long story short, only 2 of these notchless hoods were ever made.

When I came across Chris' posting, I thought, "I have to have that hood!" But given Chris' story and the fact that only 2 were ever made, I pretty much knew I was out of luck. Nevertheless, I wanted to do more research, so I googled "Proglass Mystery 7 hood," and found some other postings Chris had made on other websites. In one, I saw that he mentioned the 2nd hood was for sale (!!). However, I was looking at the end of November, 2008, and Chris' post had been from the previous August, so what were the chances it was still available?

Well, I send Chris a personal message over that mustang forum, and he told me he wasn't sure what the current status was, but suggested I contact Terry. He had posted some contact info for Terry, but I had tried it and found the numbers disconnected, and he had since left Proglass. After a little while of some deep searching, I found an email address for a Terry DeLong outside of Indianapolis that tracked to a machine shop. Hoping this was him, I shot him an email, and soon heard back from him, saying that the hood was, indeed, still for sale, and that a buddy of his, Tom, currently had the hood.

After our brief email exchange, I called Terry and talked to him on the phone. He told me that Tom had had to sell his Mustang, and had returned it to stock, and had a bunch of left-over pieces, including the hood. Tom had tried to sell the hood on ebay, but was unsuccessful. Terry told me Tom was actually considering just throwing or giving it away, but that Terry had admonished him just to hold onto it for a while and see what happened. Wow, good advice, Terry! He must be prescient.

Here are a couple pictures of the actual hood I've purchased. These pictures were taken by Chris, with the hood on Tom's Torch Red convertible (btw, I don't think this looks as good on the convertible as it does on the coupe for some reason). (Since my car is Redfire, I'll have to have it repainted, but that's no big deal.)

The second picture, btw, shows the functional "ram air" - it may be a little hard to make out, but there is actually a tunnel from the open "nostrils" of the scoop over to that cut-out square on the right, which, when the hood is closed, goes right over the air intake.

So Terry said he would contact Tom, ask what he wanted for the hood, and help out shipping it. He did that, came back to me shortly with a very fair price (several hundred dollars below typical aftermarket hoods), and I accepted. Shortly after that, I spoke with Tom on the phone, got information on how to paypal him, and did so. I'm currently waiting for the hood to be shipped.

Why I Like the Mystery 7

What I like about the Mystery 7 hood is that it has an aggressive look, but is still pretty subtle. The scoop is much lower profile than almost every other scoop out there. And, the hood extends 3 inches beyond the factory hood, kind of giving a "bite" to the front end, which you can see in the profile pictures of Chris' car below:

Because the hood extends, there are some additional pieces that go with the hood to make the exension look right, which you may have noticed, for instance over the headlight in the above picture (I call this the "eyebrow"). Here are some close-up pictures of those extensions.
From what I've heard from Chris, and from Terry himself, the fit and finish on this hood is impeccable, A+. This is important because aftermarket fiberglass hoods often need a lot of work to get them fit appropriately on a car. Without that work, they can be warped, leave large gaps, etc. Not good. So the fact that this hood was hand-made by a fiberglass craftsman who really knows his stuff, and has already been successfully installed on a Mustang, is all good news for me.
This is particularly key because there have been a few guys who have installed the notched Fang version on their cars and found the work to be very substandard.

Combine all these things with the fact this this hood is truly one-of-a-kind (ok, two of a kind!), and I'm really excited about it. I think its going to be a really special thing to have for my Mustang, and will help set it apart and make it unique again.

What This Has To Do With The Price of Tea in China

So what's the point of this story? Well, having come upon this great hood, styled after the 1967 Shelby GTs, it got me thinking about doing a full tribute project, whereby I would transform my car to look as much like a 1967 Shelby G.T. 350 as possible. These S197s were styled after the Mustangs of the 60s and 70s, and just beg for retro-styled mods. So deciding on this hood was the genesis of my tribute project idea.

This post is long enough, believe me, I know, so I'll forego the details now. In my next post, I'll tell you a little more about the '67 Shelbys, show you some cool pictures, and tell you all the elements that I plan to mimic in my tribute project.