Out Of Ideas?

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We’ve had a customer in the office today who wanted some parts and paid his account. As he and Adam loaded them into his van his lovely wife then asked “What else can I buy him for Christmas?” She was unsure what to buy and didn’t want to get the wrong thing. Simple – our Mustang Maniac Vouchers! She wasn’t aware that we sold them. Now we are not going to say how many she bought, but we will say that her husband is going to have a great Christmas when he opens them up! So it’s not to late to pop in and get some, or order them on the WebShop, click here for the link. This gave us an idea for this quick reactive post to help out any “Mustang Wives” out there who need an idea. Also the a great subtle hint to pass this link to your loved ones 😉

They come in £10 or £20 denominations

£10 voucher

£20 voucher

Perfect for stocking fillers too. 

Gift Voucher pair

If your out of ideas, we have an answer.

Posted in Sales, Webshop | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Restoration First?

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

While we have been busy posting about our SEMA 2016 trip, there has been a few changes going on behind the scenes. We have removed the “graveyard” where the old cars awaiting our magical touches. And will be replaced with a “little project” Adam has in mind. Those cars will now be going into storage in the big shed for now. Yogi realising that these will be coming his way soon!

We are still planning on posting the SEMA 2016 day four as well as the Shelby Heritage Museum tour we promised you over the coming week. We had taken almost nine hundred pictures that day and we still need to sort out the better pics to upload for you.

A first for the Restoration industry?

So back to the what we do best, showing you what we do. As we like to think we are pretty unique we have made some serious decisions while we were in Las Vegas over a beer or two. We currently have our Mustang Maniac Forum that is popular, but it has started to die down. This is not unique to our forum though, it’s happened to a lot of other forums too. The mobile phone is the communication device for emails, photo’s and keeping up with the world on the go. So logging into a forum with passwords on a mobile, leaving a reply, then waiting for a response all takes just to long in this busy world of ours. So we had an idea and are very excited it, that idea has taken off very well with a small “trial” invited group of members.

We have created a Facebook Chat group called “Mustang Maniacs“.

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From there you can see some real-time updates from us along with updates from other members of the group. Now this group is going to be all about Mustangs or Fords, so there is none of this “I’m popping out for a pint of milk” rubbish. However if you said “I’m going out in my Mustang to an event” – that’s a whole new conversation to be had. We have now opened this up this new group to everybody to upload their car pictures, stories for others to comment on or just to read what we and others are up to. If you have a question – members from the Mustang Maniac forum may have that answer for you, on the group now. If you have a technical sales question; we still request you email adam@mustangmaniac.co.uk for further details as normal, we won’t be doing business on the group. There are moderators who will be keeping an eye on things too, so keep it nice and no moaning, or you could find yourself blocked. To show this all in action we had a three-way example view. We had to get a customer’s car out from storage to be moved to the panel shop. Lance “live” streamed the move to the Mustang Maniacs Group, we also took pictures of the live streaming in progress for the blog here. Filming the filming if you like.

The car being moved.

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Lance filming and the live stream

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The live feed as it happened

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Click here to see the full live feed, or copy this to your browser –  https://www.facebook.com/lance.barrington/videos/10154775131952418/

With the car moved into the workshop Yogi took a selfie for the group:

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What was he looking at?

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So we hope you can see how want it to work, a snapshot in time of Mustang Maniacs, and like minded people. We want people to interact with us, we shall try to post and upload where we can. Of course you can post your own pics and comment on others as you see fit. Remember; banter is good, moaning and insults are not. Show us your projects, tell us your thoughts, ask us what we think, send us a message, anything car related.

Let us know what you think.

So how many other car restorations out there show you what they do as it happens? Of course the blog is here to stay, and it will continue to give a little more in-depth behind the scenes as we always do. For a quick moment in time or chat with us and other members; join us at Mustang Maniacs! That leads us very nicely into the next section:

Customer’s Cars:

’67 Convertible Full Restoration

This is a new project that the Yogi will be starting soon. It’s a ’67 289cid Convertible, which needs some serious attention. We aim to bring this project to you step by step as you would expect. This is the car that was moved in the live stream from above.

We are looking for a nickname for this car now. Perhaps the owner Mark may have an idea for us?

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The ’69 with the new front end has been taken off the jig after Yogi had welded the new panels back in place. The car was moved to Yogi ‘s work shop (Yogi says that’s an upgrade for a car accommodation), where the work can be continued under the car. The underside will need to be rubbed down in order for the final welding to be completed. The rubbing down and grinding work can be heard going on in the background of the live video we mentioned above.

The new front looks great and won’t be long before she is off to paint.

Chris’s Coupe

The last few weekends since Chris has got back from Vegas he has been working hard to get his car ready for some metal work and body prep. Chris had stripped and rubbed the inside of the engine bay down and has started to paint it. Being in the storage shed Chris had a flood light on the engine bay. from a distance it looked like a little star shining down on him!

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We suspect that the complete engine bay will be done by the end of the day (Saturday). A good start and there is nothing like seeing your first coats of paint going on the car. It transforms the whole car from a work in progress to a restoration under way.

News:

Adam like to keep an eye on things for sale and see what the Mustang Market is up to. On this occasion he contact a guy who was selling an engine. The story is that the previous owner took it out of a car and nobody knows much about the engine. Adam was sent a few photo’s and bought it straight away. Why, because he knew this was “special” to the other blocks that come up for sale. The chrome rocker covers were rusty as was the sump. No problems there as they can be replaced. But taking the rocker covers of the engine, Adam’s suspicions were correct. He had found a little diamond in the rough. Adam and Yogi

What we have here is a brand new block with a very nice set of GT40P heads on it.

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The guys continued to strip the rest of it apart to see what was going on.

This was a new rebuilt engine and the cylinders still had the honing marks on them. The timing chain was new as were the valves, cam and the cam rollers.

What did Adam think? Well, they say a picture speaks a thousand words. Speaking of thousands; Adam reckons the work that had gone into the engine and the use of Ford stamped parts, “You can easily add a nought to what I paid for this engine, bargain!” Shame that luck didn’t run with him on the card tables at Las Vegas!

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Adam pointed out the differences on the heads and how he spotted it. The GT40P heads needed better springs to make use of the valve openings depending on cam and the larger exhaust porting. Headers will need to be specific GT40P fits. The headers are right up there with the fabled “HiPo” units, apart from modern alloy heads this is about as good as it got. But a lot of people want originality and more power. What we have here is both.

Next week we intend to be concluding our SEMA 2016 posts.

Posted in Blog, Forum, Mustang Maniacs Group, Restoration, SEMA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Las Vegas – SEMA 2016 Day 3 (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Thursday 3rd November 2016. SEMA has been a pretty awesome show and we have loved every minute of it so far. But, this afternoon of the third day we had a special catch up with a friend of Adam’s and and official interview. The suspense is now over as we can reveal that it was Cleo Shelby, the fifth and surviving wife of  the late Carroll Shelby. Adam had arranged to meet up with his long time friend Cleo at a place of her choosing, where he had a more private conversation shortly before Chris joined Adam with a whole heap of questions ready to ask Cleo. The rest of us being Yogi, Gary, Jason and Mart turning up a few minutes later and we all sat down with her after introductions and had a drink or three with her.

First a little about Cleo;

After the sad passing of Swedish-born Lena Dahl Shelby in a highway accident in 1997, Carroll insisted he would never marry again. Four months later he married Cleo Patricia Marguerita Shelby in Las Vegas. Cleo was a vivacious Briton who was always by his side, even as she pursued her interests in flying, art and jewellery. Carroll initially meet Cleo in 1970. About that first meeting, Cleo told us that when Carroll first saw her she was getting of a car in her full evening wear and jewellery. Carroll thought she was a princess and started to talk to her and they hit it off straight away. Carroll also told Cleo that he was going to marry her at that first encounter. He had to wait a while, they were indeed married some 27 years later. There are relatively few photo’s of Carroll and Cleo together, so we found some stock images here.

Chris was asking lots of questions in his official capacity for Classic American magazine. As this was going to be an exclusive we won’t repeat everything she told us. But, Cleo was fantastic and answered everything thrown at her from all of us at some point. Some of it will be in the interview, some of it certainly won’t. Such a classy lady and she has a great sense of humour too. We can reveal a little story about when Carroll was taken seriously ill, he needed to get to a hospital as an emergency which was miles away. Their aeroplane was standing by, but the pilot was told to “get out of the way”, as Cleo (who is fully qualified pilot) had at the time over 4000 flying hours, compared to the relatively small amount from the pilot. Needless to say Cleo got Carroll to the hospital and he was treated to fight another day. Stories like that you just don’t read about. So it seems this lovely lady can certainly lay the law down when she needs too. We didn’t take photo’s during the chat and Chris’s interview as we saved those for outside in the afternoon sun. Cleo is quite a private person and keeps herself very much to herself, but she agreed to sign our SEMA passes, and just about everything else the guys put in front of her. After an absolutely fascinating two full hours with Cleo, it was time to leave as Cleo had another meeting to attend, which it looked like she was going to be late for now. We all went outside for that impromptu photo shoot, trust us, we have quiet a few pics, here are only a small sample of the ones we took. Chris was taking the official photo’s for the Classic American Magazine to go with the interview of course, but we grabbed a few of our own too.

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The Mustang Maniac “core”, Adam & Yogi had their pic(s) taken first as you would expect.

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Then the rest of the guys also got in for a photo, Gary, Adam, Jason, Cleo, Mart & Yogi. Now there’s one for the album and to tell your grandchildren!

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There was a lot of people looking to see what was going on, and taking their photo’s of us, as we were taking ours. We did hear a comment from a guy to his friends, “Did you see who that was, how did they get to meet her?” Adam replied with, “Not bad for a small time parts dealer eh?” They looked a little blank at his response, to which Adam just smiled. This has become a little bit of an in-house, joke saying for Adam, if you know Adam then you will understand the story behind it. Adam tells us that there are some readers out there who will know exactly what it means.

We all escorted Cleo back to her car and chatted some more on the way, we were part of her entourage for the day so it seemed. We said our goodbyes, Cleo gave us all a hug and kiss. Adam had a few more quiet words before Cleo got in her car and left with a big smile and a wave. We walked back to the SEMA show still slightly shell-shocked to meet such a high-profile person in the automotive world. We asked Adam why didn’t he mention Cleo before to us? He replied with a typical Adam-ism “I know a lot of people, I don’t need to name drop.” With that, we all knew what he meant. It only leaves one thing to say to a very busy lady:

Thank you Cleo for taking some time out of your schedule to catch up with us.

Later that evening we went out to our local eatery Wingstop, 3910 S Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas. NV 89119. We had been looked after so well by a young lady called Morgan, she had asked us where we had been, so we told her SEMA. She told us that she would love to have gone to see it. With that Adam had sparked an idea. Adam asked Chris to get her to one side as he was going for another free refill, as he had a little surprise for her. Adam had a spare ticket and wanted to give it to Morgan. 

Morgan was absolutely delighted and a little overwhelmed that some strangers would do such a thing for her, you just can’t buy smiles like this. Needless to say Adam got another hug from a young lady who was lost for words.

During the evening the beer never seemed to stop flowing for some reason. A fantastic way to end the day. Cleo made our day, so Adam (being Adam), came to the rescue and made a young lady’s day too. Morgan posted a great picture of her inside the SEMA show for the final day with big thank you to Mustang Maniac.

Posted in Car Shows, Photos, SEMA | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Las Vegas – SEMA 2016 Day 3 (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on December 6, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Thursday 3rd November 2016. Today is half way through the SEMA show and there was still so much more to see. We woke up to a beautiful day and had a breakfast orange juice sitting around the pool and still we were talking about the previous day’s antics. We knew this was going to be a great day and we were looking forward to it. Potentially the highlight of the visit to Las Vegas?

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Adam had a meeting first thing with another Ford dealers and we set of early with him. As after the meeting we were going straight to the SEMA again. On the way out from Vegas we passed some famous landmarks that look pretty normal in daylight.

The roads are just spectacular, pretty straight and in the middle of a wonderful mountain range scenery situated within the Mojave Desert, Nevada. But, did you know that Las Vegas was settled in 1905 and officially incorporated in 1911. At the close of the 20th century, it was the most populated American city founded within that century (a similar distinction earned by Chicago in the 1800s). Population growth has accelerated since the 1960s, and between 1990 and 2000 the population nearly doubled, increasing by 85.2%. Rapid growth has continued into the 21st century, and according to a 2013 estimate, the population is 603,488 with a regional population of 2,027,828.

We arrived at the dealers and left Adam to do what he does best. While we had a look around.

Once business was completed it was time to head for SEMA, on the way back we had a couple of interesting pics. Anybody would think that Yogi and Mart had been on the medicine!

We arrived at SEMA in good time and eventually found a parking space. We wasted no time in getting into the halls to explore some more.

After the tour of the inside we found some more cars outside. This by the looks of it was where the “Ricers” were hanging out, with all the bolt on bits to their cars. You either like or loath them. But, there was the odd American their to show how it should be done.

We found what we came to see in this display area. The truck that started it all and still the king of Monster Trucks – Big Foot.

Then of course the Promotional Ladies have their own little section, there wasn’t too many in this hall, but it looked like Mart was having a good time do some promotional work too!

Our next post has the very special meeting we can’t wait to share with you.

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Las Vegas – SEMA 2016 Day 2 (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on December 4, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Wednesday 2nd November 2016. After we had seen what we needed to see from the second day of the SEMA show, we were driven to a surprise location that Adam had in store for us; “The Gun Store”. Not knowing quite what to expect, but we soon found out. Before we start, we are aware that some people can take offence to guns, we would like to repeat something that was told to us “Guns don’t kill, the people holding them do.” Without being drawn into a for or against debate for gun control, we were going for some tuition in a controlled environment where nobody gets hurt, except for the paper target bad guys. It didn’t make us want to buy guns, it was another secret item on the bucket list we didn’t know we had. The walls of the store are covered in guns of all sorts’ of shapes, calibre, size and styles. We walked to a room where we could pick our weapons to shoot or choose a package. While we were waiting for a range to become free we were asked to choose four targets for the weapons we wanted to fire. From the large selection we could have standard targets, military personal, bad guys, aliens and mixtures. We had some slight variations between us, but that was all down to personal preference. Five of us were going to be shooting, four of us picked the package option – “Zombie”. Yogi went different with the “Coalition”. We picked our safety googles and ear defenders before we were even allowed near the shooting ranges. We were led to a room where our dedicated trainer/supervisor introduced himself. We listened to the important safety procedures and protocols. Those of us on the Zombie package started off with the hand gun a XDM9 firing at our respective targets. At the end of each weapon discharge the targets were given back to you to keep or throw away. We had to have the obligatory photos of our attempts to take down the bad guys! Adam was up first, Jason, Gary, Mart and followed by Yogi. Yogi’s weapons were M249 S.A.W, M4, Rem.700 and a M9.

We started with the hand gun.

Confidence was growing as was the silly grins creeping over our faces, just for being able to shoot such well-known weapons. After the hand gun it was time for the semi automatic assault rifle AR15 with our next up targets.

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The shotgun was pump-action firing solid slugs rather than shot cartridges. Such a cool sound having to exit the shell and load the next one. The muzzle flash shots are not photo shopped and are the real deal.

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Yogi decided that the front stand wasn’t bad enough, so he held it to his shoulder. Bad to the Bone!

The final shoots for most of use were going to be the full auto Glock carbine.

Jason with some great action shots with the rounds being ejected from the Glock. It gives you a rough idea how quick these guns fire, with six spent cartridge cases in the air from a short burst!

Yogi was firing the Rem. 700 via the stand.

After we had all fired our rounds and was left panting for more we were taken out the side and through the shop itself. If you wanted it – you could buy it.

Such a huge buzz from “The Gun Shop”, they were very professional and such a nice bunch of guys, and that made the afternoon so much more enjoyable. As we had paid for a package we were all given a T-shirt with their logo on the front to take home with us, a nice memento to add to the ever growing t-shirt collections. We left as it was getting dusk to go into the new town strip for something to eat and a beer or three to take in the busy day.

What could top a day like that? Well we certainly managed it. SEMA day 3 pt.1, will see the next hall we worked our way around. Part 2 will be something quite special when moving around in the social circles of Mustang Maniac. All will be revealed soon.

Posted in Car Shows, SEMA, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Las Vegas – SEMA 2016 Day 2 (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Wednesday 2nd November 2016. We got up early for something to eat, the sun was already out so this was going to be another lovely day in Las Vegas. For the second day of the show was going to be a little different. We wanted to do another hall of cars & trucks and finish a bit earlier ready for the second part of the day Adam had planned for us. We will cover that little adventure in the next post.

On arrival it was already busy, finding a place to park is a mission in its own right, seems as though people were starting to catch on to our secret little place.

The hall was packed out again so we decided to work logically up one walkway and down the next until we had seen the whole area. We start with more cars and trucks.

There was some pretty cool accessories on show and made some interesting pics. You found a “small upgrade” to add to his engine, some monstrous supercharger or two!

 

We worked our way outside to some more displays and the sounds of cars being thrashed around an arena.

The cars being thrown around the track were a couple of Mustangs going for it side by side.

Camaro with a v12

Now for most Mustang lovers there is a special car which is owned by Ken Block. Of course we are referring to the Hoonigan. This reincarnation now has twin super chargers boasting a massive 1400bhp! Needless to say we are dedicating a little section to that car here. Hopefully we have it covered from every angle. It’s not often you get up close to such a car.

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Now for the popular part gathering from emails tells us; the lovely SEMA promotion ladies.

Mart managed to get a pic taken with some of the models.

On the way back to the car we grabbed a few last pics from SEMA day two.

The next Part 2 post has nothing to do with cars or trucks. But it managed to make every one of us produce a huge smile for the hour or so we were there.

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Las Vegas – SEMA 2016 Day 1 (Part 3 of 3)

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Tuesday 1st November 2016. This post we wrap up the first day of cars and trucks.  We’re pretty sure we didn’t see it all, but we sure tried. Cars and trucks of the highest order along with some NHRA drag cars. We managed to capture some more of the wonderfully polite and patient ladies who signed their own promo posters and stood with everybody who wanted a photo with them. The photos are towards the end of this post.

Those of you who know Adam will seldom see him conduct public business, as he is a private man. But, at the show Yogi, Adam and Jason are seen making one of the rare conversations to start things rolling. The gentleman here liked what Adam had to say thus Adam was invited back for a more in-depth conversation to finalize the deal. Other various stands including a vinyl warp machine that printed your design’s while you waited.

Celebrity corner as promises, we have Richard Petty and of course the Bond car Aston Martin DB5 with all the gadgets. The DB5 here is called “The Q Car” and a fantastic replica.

This particular Chevy got a constant stream of admirers around it and we can see why. Such a great car to look at. This was one of a number of cars that were making copper look the latest trend.

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We made the occasional wander outside when we got to an exit for some fresh air and some liquid refreshments in the shape of Iced-T. Now we don’t mean the rapper pop star here, just a chilled Iced T. It took a few attempts for the language barrier to be broken down and resorted to some half paced speaking which just made it worse. When that didn’t approach didn’t work it was a case of Neanderthal grunts and pointing to the drinks in a huge container of ice. Then young lady said; “Oh, you mean Iced-T”. To our ears there was no difference in pronunciation. There was a few giggles behind us in the (short) queue as we walked of trying to practice our American accents ready for next time. “Ice-T” or was it “Iced-T”?

More Promotional ladies.

We finished the busy day calling into a restaurant buffet. This was under a hotel/casino with the obligatory painted ceiling to look like daylight. This was a little different as the $39.99 will cover all you can eat and all you can drink.

The food was theme, seafood, Mexican, American, Asian, salad, soup and Italian. We managed to make a huge dent in each of the themes and the food was great quality. The best bit was us drinking beer the odd beer or two each. We think that Mustang Maniac crew got their monies worth this time. Although we don’t want to paint the picture of us all being heavy drinkers here, but the thirst was intense after all the walking of the day.

The pictures of the empty bottles was after a few had been cleared away. The journey back home was a contented one reflecting back on cars, trucks, engine parts, pretty girls, food and beer.

Also today was a special occasion as it was Yogi’s Birthday, so it was great evening off course, great food, lots of beer and great company.

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Happy Birthday Yogi.

What could be better? We even come back to do it all again tomorrow for Day 2!

Posted in SEMA, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Las Vegas – SEMA 2016 Day 1 (Part 2 of 3)

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Tuesday 1st November 2016. The SEMA show day one continues after our lunch break, we walked back inside to head straight to the Ford stand. We spent a fair amount of time there looking at the new models, track day cars and cars that win after a full day of racing.

Looking at Ken Blocks previous ride it was interesting to see that the lights both front a rear were actually stickers on solid metal.

Perhaps the most prized car on the ford stand was the actual race winning Le Mans GT car. The car is in exactly the same condition it was in as it crossed the finish line.

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There was an Eleanor on show, but this one was automatic without any NOS.

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On the way through to the Ford stand we had taken some pics of the cars & trucks that took our eye. The choice was varied, movie cars, record-breaking wood cars to the most shiny car we have ever seen done out in anodised coloured panels.

Some of the accessories were replacements, some were modern takes on an old style, there was everything from complete replacement bodies to gauges, some were just all about the bling with an engine covered in Rhine stones. Mart meet Barry Meguiar and took great delight in saying that he wanted some free shares considering the amount of cleaning products he buys from them!

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Of course we can’t have a SEMA post without with some lovely promotional girls.

The last part of day one (part 3) we shall have more photo’s of the rest of the hall, movie cars and the odd celeb spotted.

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Las Vegas – SEMA 2016 Day 1 (Part 1 of 3)

Posted on November 25, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Tuesday 1st November 2016. SEMA starts, the whole point of the trip out to Las Vegas was now being played out. Due to the number of photo’s we took we will have to split the SEMA days over a few posts, if we don’t there would be a huge post taking ages to load. So here is part one of three. Luckily there won’t be too many words on these posts as it’s mainly cars, trucks and the odd pretty promotional ladies.

We had already had the parking sussed out and drove there after a light breakfast of a Steak and eggs! The South hall was going to be entrance and first port of call. For the guy’s first visit, Yogi, Gary and Mart they were amazed at the size of the halls, not on a single floor, but in some places over two floors. We spent the day in this hall and the “Ford OutFront” show. At this point we would like to thank Gary for keeping an eye out for Mart while he randomly disappeared to take a pic of something throughout the four days of SEMA. He managed to keep us all together unless we separated for a while to look at our own things, so he deserves an award for that and having the patience of a saint.

The cars and trucks need no introductions.

Yogi said that he had found his next ride as it was big enough for the bear.

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We called outside to see the “Ford Outfront” where some cars and trucks were being thrashed around a track. There was even a band to welcome you in.

Some very talented driving skills were on display we must say. There was a raptor doing leaps over mounds of mud and Mustangs making lots of noise as well as destroying a few sets of tyres!

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Some of the best noises were coming from the Roush tuned Mustang.

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Around the arena were various tuning companies, aftermarket upgrades and of course a Ford merchandising truck. There was celebrity cars of their own rights, along with some celebrities themselves.

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After the Ford merchandising truck had persuaded us to part with a few dollars we had a look around the outside of the halls. Fascinating mixture of cars McLaren hyper car, the best of Japan Skyline all mixed up with SS lifted classic.

Around lunch time Adam had some business appointments from stand holders to demo their products and attended the odd meeting(s) throughout the day. We made our way towards some hospitality suites for a sit down and some food.

After the very welcomed rest we headed back inside.. all of which is to come in Part 2 of 3.

Posted in Car Shows, SEMA, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Las Vegas – Halloween

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Monday 31st October 2016. After our trip to the Hoover Dam we sat in the Hoover Dam Lodge quenching our thirsts until it was dark. The idea here was we wanted to drive into Las Vegas down the straight roads to see the lights in the distance. We will of course have a post of the new strip lights in full to come.

We passed quickly through the new strip and took some photos on the way through from the car.

We arrived “Downtown” after our drive and found a place to park. The thirst issue was not fully resolved and needed to be addressed as soon as possible. We found a bar at the edge of the Fremont Street strip so we could watch the world go by for a while. We have gone from vast open expanse of scenery to a point where we couldn’t even see the sidewalk later as it was so busy. Halloween was underway and a prize was being given for the best outfit by the judges where ever they may have been hiding.  Live bands were playing and a group on a stag outing by the looks of it were enjoying the music and the beer!  The street was in full swing and the atmosphere was amazing, with every turn of the traffic lights more people flocked to the area.

We tried to walk up and down the strip, but it was just best to go with the flow of people who had a natural slow meandering speed and direction.

Mart had on his bucket list to have a gamble in the Casino. Probably the famous casino in the area being the Golden Nugget was the place we headed for. The wallet that was previously lost was opened and some dollars were changed into little plastic discs. Black Jack was the chosen game and he found a table to take up residence.

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Cards were dealt and we must say that Marts poker face was rubbish as he smiled at a good hand. After a few hands Mart had worked up a sweat, but he was up $75, not being able to believe his luck. So he decided to walk away and quit while he was up and his luck held out. Bucket list for Mart had another item ticked off.

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The walk back took us past some more attractions not just bright lights this time.

We decided to call it a night not wanting to be too late as we had an early start for SEMA in the Morning. As we walked back to the car, we passed a monument that during the day was impressive, but at night it came to life. A fire-breathing bug, the noise and heat was pretty spectacular.

We found somewhere to eat off the beaten track a little, in the shape of a burger bar, it wasn’t the best, but it serviced a need but it did have a casino although it wasn’t that busy.

We had to stop off on the way back, just in case as we couldn’t remember the state of the beer supplies, in case that dreaded thirst reared its ugly head again. It was now T-minus six hours to go before we got to SEMA. 🙂

Did you know?

  1. The names Las Vegas and Vegas are interchangeably used to indicate the Valley, the Strip, and the city, and are used as a brand by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to denominate the entire region. The Valley is affectionately known as the “ninth island” by Hawaii natives and Las Vegans alike, in part due to the large number of people originally from Hawaii who live in and travel to Las Vegas on a regular basis.
  2.  Since the 1990’s the Las Vegas Valley has seen exponential growth, more than doubling its population of 741,459 in 1990 to more than 2 million estimated in 2015. The Las Vegas Valley remains one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States, and in its relatively short history has established a diverse presence in international business, commerce, urban development and entertainment, as well as one of the most iconic and most visited tourist destinations in the world.
  3. In 2014, a record-breaking 41 million visited the Las Vegas area, producing a gross metropolitan product of more than $100 billion.
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