Another big post for you this week, lots of pictures of the Mustang Maniac clew go on tour to the USA. OK, so when we say the USA technically it is the USA bu located in the UK. we of course mean Lakenheath where there was a “Wings & Wheels” show, the first one as last years was cancelled due to a security issue. The guys were a little undecided as to whether they should go or not due to the weather which was looking unpredictable. But they decided to go anyway. Lance & his fiancée Sam drove his ’65 to Paul’s house where he and his son Mason where waiting. Unfortunately they picked up an additional passenger in the shape of a bird that meet his grill head on. They were a little delayed removing the remains from the front of the car. The drive was about forty mins where they meet Mart at McDonald’s for breakfast. We do have pictures, but it wasn’t pretty!

The place was busy with lots of cars meeting up ready for the next five-minute trip up the road. Mason was filming the trip and we have a couple of them here. The wind noise is expected from leaning out the window, but not to bad at all.

Security was incredibly tight there and photo ID had to be shown while you were held at a waiting points. Above Lance and Paul were looking at the other cars. The cars were called into an area and searched while you had to wait in a cabin where you couldn’t see what was going on. Searches done the cars were all escorted into the show area which was part of a standing area by the side of the runway, each space was allocated per car. There was supposed to be about four hundred cars there according to one of the machine gun-toting guards, but there was less than half of that by the looks of it.

The cars were parked up and wander around the area that you were not allowed to leave unless security escorted away. There was plenty to do for youngsters in the shape of a fun fair, a few stalls selling pulled pork, sausages, burgers and other various American goodies taking payment in dollars and pounds.

After an hour you had seen everything to be honest as there nothing else there to see or do as you weren’t allowed away from the designated area.

At two thirty there was a Spitfire which did a run over the airfield and back, by the time the camera was out, it had gone. There was a promise of a Vulcan bomber to fly over at five thirty, but that didn’t happen either. The only thing that did open was the rain. It was forecast light showers, it looked like the entire rain fall of the USA happened within a few hundred yards where the cars were parked up for the afternoon.

After the downpour that lasted for quarter of an hour or so, the sun came out; so did the drying towels, chamois leathers, micro fibre cloths and yet more lovingly applied wax to the cars. The weather held off for the rest of the afternoon we are glad to say. At five in the afternoon it was award time, a customer of ours picked up a trophy on the day, so well done to him.

The guys managed to get their cars next to each other for the afternoon photo shoot which worked out quite well in the end.

Lance and Sam posed for a quick candid picture, Mason who had a very busy day was counting raindrops and trying to catch them during his snooze!

Big thanks to Paul, Mason, Lance, Sam & Mart for sharing their photos with us. 

Customers Cars:

We had a big block engine in that was blowing from the exhaust manifold. The trouble with the big blocks are you can’t get tot he bolts properly as they are so close to the shock towers. We had tightened the manifolds up previously in place as best we could to try and keep the costs down. But, it wasn’t working to well and after a while they started to blow again which left us scratching heads a little. So could only mean one thing; it was engine out time.

Once we started to remove the manifolds it was obvious why, a previous fitting in the USA had put a double exhaust manifold gaskets in place. One had broken down and no amount of tightening was going to repair it. We fitted the correct manifolds this time and should now be fine again.

Prom Night:

Mustang Maniac to the rescue again. Something we have adopted from the USA is prom nights. Adam has known Kane since he was six years old and now it was time for his prom night. What else could be better than to rock up to school in a Classic Shelby KR? Kane and his mate Sam were duly delivered in style, not before a few pictures first though. Glad to help out for such a good cause. 🙂

Kane

Kane

Kane & Sam

Kane & Sam

Kane & Sam

Adam on “Brexit”:

There is so much waffle at the moment about trade deals with the UK, Europe and the rest of the World. So in Adam’s very own words he explained how it works; “I made my own trade deal, you email them, you pay them, they send it”. So here is the proof, yet again that this idea seems to work very well. Another big delivery of Mustang parts that will be sorted out and added to the WebShop as soon as we can.

Office Phones:

We have been super busy with the cars, stock deliveries and order dispatches, road tests, MOT’s, holiday season etc. Something has to give, the phones are the first thing that gets relegated down the list. We don’t like doing it, but sometimes it’s the only way we can deal with all the things going on at the time. When we are taking a big block out of a car and the phone is ringing to ask if we have something in stock or not, it does cause some issues. We can only say again – the stock list is 100% up to date on the WebShop, if its says it’s in stock – honestly, it’s in stock. We have been successful with the out of hours email service we provide, which is a lot more than other companies will provide we might add here. So please send us emails and pictures of the questions you need for a part you might need or cant find on the WebShop as it makes it easier for us to give you the correct answer. No matter how hard you try, descriptions over the phone are never as good as a photo.

Finally:

We finish up with a little request from Yogi (Allan), the picture speaks for itself. Yogi would appreciate it if you could let him know. Thanks.