Baby Ponies

Posted on August 20, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Here at Mustang Maniac we like to build great customer relationships over the long-term and we have many loyal customers who come back year after year for products and services etc – but a few weeks ago we were contacted with an unusual request from one of our youngest followers. A four-year old contacted us via her grandfather to ask whether we could locate a Mustang pedal car. Originally Ford approved a Mustang pedal car and launched it at the same time as the full size Mustang. It sold over 100,000 units in the first year. Later, the well-regarded Mustang part supplier Scott Drake reproduced a Mustang pedal car using the exact designs from the original. These days, any Mustang pedal car is a rare beast indeed so it took all our investigation skills to track one of these little babies down. As we hate to let any of our customers down and particularly one who is only 4 years old, we pulled out all the stops and managed through our many contacts to locate one in a garage on the south coast. We sent a truck to collect it, the pedal car in “as found’ original blue colour.

Our little 4 year old customer was truly delighted but, as is often the case, wanted us to customise it to match her granddad’s Mustang……she also wanted it to have a full body-off, nut and bolt restoration as well!! Not to disappoint, we set about a total strip down and while the chassis was being fully restored, Paul the Paint worked his magic on the body, painting it in a rare Mustang colour of Pagoda Green and lavishing it with numerous coats of clear lacquer. When the body shell came back it was reunited with the newly restored chassis. We also wanted to maintain the high standards Mustang Maniac is so proud to be known by; so all fixings, nuts and bolts were polished stainless steel so this little Mustang will last for many years to come.

The assembly line in the workshop goes into the unusual restoration routine.

Soon it was time for all those finishing touches that make all the difference to be applied; original pattern decals were tracked down in the USA and were shipped over with Adam’s usual stock deliveries. The decals were carefully applied as if it were fitted to a full-sized Pony car.

Almost finished….
After a final polish, a re-upholstered seat (made from an old door card), it was off for a quick road test. Rumour has it that Adam got stopped by the police on the A10 for ‘excessive speed’. Of course this was strenuously denied as Adam “hadn’t even shifted to top yet”! 🙂

A few final adjustments and the project was completed with matching number plates, baby pony stood next to the even rarer matching big pony!

Our new young customer is absolutely delighted with her new ‘baby pony’ and has sent a huge thank you to the team at Mustang Maniac for finding, collecting and carefully restoring this little beauty for her. Another satisfied customer!

The best part of all this? The grandfather and the four year granddaughter have both decided that once the car is outgrown, the pedal car will come back to Mustang Maniac for a service and a be donated to another deserving little one to enjoy which is just brilliant and a kind thought, A new precedent has been set where the process can be repeated all over again. Thank you GW.

Shelby 1/8th Model

Speaking of “Baby Pony” cars we have built quite a few issues in one go of this amazing model. You can follow the story so far clicking here or past this link into your browser: https://mustangmaniac.org/shelby-gt500-18th-scale-model/

There are some duplicates issues here, left and right sides like the rear wheels and the rear suspension leaf springs. The principles are exactly the same so I won’t repeat myself on those, but you will get the general idea for each side.

Parts 25 & 26 + 29 & 30

These issues deal with the rear suspension set up and secures the rear axle in place. There are some very intricate bits here and the pins into the top part of the shocks have to be pressed into place with a pair of pliers. make a note of which way round these brackets fit on the end of the leaf springs as they fit the chassis rails, and also which end they are applied too as the leaf springs only fit one way. These top of the shocks are angled so you need to make sure which way round they sit too otherwise the shock sections will not meet correctly.

In the issues 25 & 29 they tell you to secure the axle’s shock mounting plate in place, then in issues 26 & 30 they tell you to remove it and then add the shock bottom section to it. We found this a bit of a mess. So we had both issues open 25 & 26 then 29 & 30 to mix them both together so it’s only fitted once. The shock plate also gets in the way of fitting the shock top to the floor pan too where they suggest you use tweezers to put it in place.

Parts 27 & 31 + 28 & 32

These are the rear wheels, exactly the same principles as the front wheels, heat them up with a hair dryer to supple the tyres up and then press the rims into the tyres. From the parts 26 & 30 there is the brake drum components, locate these to the inside of the rims and fit over the rear axle. A single screw will hold the wheel in place and cover with the centre caps. Parts 28 & 32 are the inner wheel arches, just three screws each side hold them in place, a dead simple set of six issues.

With the parts all in place the rear section will stand on its own and you can get a lot of the parts located onto the chassis and tidy up the box of parts you have.

Parts 33 – 36

These issues see the floor pans moving to the centre sections and the prop shaft, gearbox housing and gearbox brace. Part thirty-three see’s a large section which has a few screws to locate it to the front section of the rear chassis.

Part 34 see’s the centre tunnel continue up to the front section. We found this was a little tricky to locate all in place so we put the screws in and only just caught the threads to allow any adjustments. tightening the back down lifted the front and was awkward to locate. with no pressure on the screws you can just tighten them all up once they are in place.

Turning the model over now will allow the prop shaft to be fitted in place. This comes in two parts and his held in place by two screws from the floor pan.

Parts 36 sees the gearbox housing and the brace fit into place. again dead simple with only a few screws to hold in to the floor pan.

Completed so far.

We are so far impressed with the quality of the plastic part mouldings. We have not had to file any rough edges or plastic lugs of to make things fit. Within this last update we again see the instructions flick between screw part numbers “MD01” or description of the screws which can be annoying at times.

Customer car projects have taken a slight pause while we get some urgent services and a couple of MOT’s out-of-the-way. We will of course bring you updates on those projects for the next post!

Posted in 1:8th Scale Model, Customers' Cars, Restoration, Uncategorized | Tagged 1/8th, DeAgostini, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, Pagoda Green, pedal car, Shelby | 5 Comments

Where Do Old Mustang Go To Die?

Posted on August 13, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

It’s no secret that at Mustang Maniac nothing goes to waste, you only have to look at Adam’s stash of second-hand parts to see that. But, during a major sort out Adam decided that an old Mustang was beyond help, and so it went to the place where Mustang Maniac’s dead Mustangs go; the scrap skip. Take a long hard look at these rare pictures, you don’t often see a most of a Mustang Scrapped by us! (Note: we said “most of a Mustang”, we did save a fair bit from the car though, however the bodywork and a some of the chassis just had to go.)

Customer Cars:

The John Wick Car

We have been asked about the John Wick Mustang the last couple of weeks and this project looks to be a popular one on the go at the yard. So without disappointment we have an update for you, the car is going through the meticulous process of wiring her up with an updated brand new wire loom. The loom is being wrapped in our own fabric tape as we go along in order to give that so important factory fitted look.

The rear lights are fitted with our own bespoke LED kit to make sure the car is safe and seen.

The inside is going to be sound proofed throughout, which by its nature is another slow and unseen task. The sound proofing is a silver matt with a very sticky backing that will adhere to the floor pans and inside the panels, doors or just about anywhere you want to stick it. Heat the material up with a hot air gun to rub and mould the pieces into place, it’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but a sticky mess version.

The trunk area is now also sound proofed and could potentially be seen, so plenty of care is taken in this area.

There are still some things that need to be sorted out to make the car look correct to the film, we will get round to those details a little later on. For now though, the car is at that slow stage where preparation is everything and the work is virtually never seen because it’s all covered up with carpets and panels.

Patchwork Racer

This little lady was seriously looked at and the difficult decision was made to replace the complete floor pans. The original floors were patched up on patches and you just can’t make a nice job from that, let alone the quality lasting. Some inner wings were replaced so far and the prep work ready for the floors.

Stock:

We mentioned that we had a stock of the new Scott Drake Alloy wheels in a little while ago and we have sold a couple of sets already which the customers are very pleased about. In the past we have been badgered to get a couple sets of four lug wheels in for the i6 engined cars, those wheels are now also in (limited) stock.

Speaking of wheels we have yet another first from Mustang Maniac; as far as we know this is the first set of 17″ inch wheels Black & Machined style wheels on a 1965 Mustang in the UK. One of our loyal customers wanted a special order from us and of course we obliged. A pair of 17″ x 7″ on the front and a pair of 17″ x 8″ on the rear. Obviously the tyre profile has to change down to 50’s, which now gives a firmer ride.

The centres were swapped out with a our very own design Mustang horse on black background to complement the look. The tyres are a set of soft Nexen performance tyres to give increased levels of grip on these wheels. As the owner said “Old school style, new look”. We couldn’t agree more.

We finish with a another very rare photo taken at a car show that Yogi attended. The picture was taken covertly in order not to frighten the bear away from cleaning his Mach1 drag strip monster!

Keep these pictures coming in and we will use them where we can. A big thanks to a gentleman called “Mr. Anonymous” for this submission. 🙂

Posted in Car Shows, Customers' Cars, News, Parts, Restoration, Sales | Tagged chassis, Dynamat, floor pans, John Wick, Mach1, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, Nexen, skip, Yogi | 2 Comments

Important Imports

Posted on July 30, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We didn’t get a chance to post last weekend as we have been so busy, not that we are complaining of course, but it has been all hands to the spanners. So we are going to give you a double update this week, just to make up for it; News, cars, car shows and WebShop. Hope your broad band or data is able to cope with the double bubble we have for you.

News:

We have some very exciting news that we have kept quiet until we were one hundred percent happy with our product testing. We have been asked by many customers to get certain carburetors, but we couldn’t get the quality and performance we wanted. However that has all changed, we have sourced our very own supply of replacement carburetors that a) are extremely difficult to get originals, and b) they work right out of the box. What we are talking about is the six cylinder “1v” version that nobody made, until now. We now stock these carbs and we are extremely pleased with them. We have fitted these on our own cars and been testing them for a while now with superb results. We have tried other eastern “compatible” versions, but they never seemed to work as they should, let alone meet our high standards. We fitted them, we like them, we sell them. These carbs will fit the 170 & 200ci engines.

1v Carburettor

We also have a stock of replacement Autolite 2100 2v carbs as well. The Autolite units can be purchased as new from various suppliers of course, but are more often than not are reconditioned core units. These new carbs have been copied from the later models with all relevant features for a number of fittings. These generic carbs have the functionality of the hot water pipe style automatic choke or the electric version for what ever you want, all on the same choke. They have various vacuum ports and breathers, a safety fuel over fill drain port, to mention a few of the features. These units will bolt onto 260, 289, 302, 351ci engines. They are not exact concours copy of the early units, but under a big air filter you wont really notice. the best part is that they work straight out of the box.

2v Carburettor

Original 2100 and the replacement unit comparison.

We are currently looking at the 4v 4100 versions to see how they perform, we will let you know nearer the time if we will stock these units and more importantly live up to our expectations.

All these carbs are supplied directly to Mustang Maniac as a UK dealer.

Wheel Centres

The other exciting news is we have produced our own version of wheel centres. We have various designs to fit the generic wheel centres from Scott Drake with a diameter of 55mm. These are so new they have not even landed on the WebShop pages just yet. We can sell them as a set or individually as required. These come in a variety of colours or styles. We may look into other colours and styles. If we get enough interest we could make unique bespoke designs as we now have the tooling available to do it..

The generic wheel centres are chrome style.

Red Centres

Blue Centres

Black Centres

Plain Black Pony

Mustang Maniac’s Own Branding

The wheel centres are cheaper than other manufacturers that we stock, now you can take your pick and choose the style you want to fit your budget.

The centres will also fit the ever popular Grant steering wheel boss.

They are great quality and be stuck where you want, on the dash, trunk, under the hood, tool boxes, fridge etc.

Import consigments

As the world is probably aware that the UK had voted to leave the European Union. As a result all sorts of things were expected to happen, some did, lots didn’t. The one thing we sort of expected was UK Sterling vs the USA Dollar rates. These have taken a bit of a tumble recently. Adam being the business man that he is, ordered a huge consignment before the vote, in the hope it would all stabilise quickly and their would be no change to our customers. That delivery was as expected cost wise and (over) stocked up on a lot of items especially the more popular lines. However a recent delivery has seen a significant change to the cost of the stock and the shipping. What happens here is you have to pay the ridiculously high Import Charges and VAT rates for the total cost of that consignment which including the shipping. This is all down to the Pound as it slides against the Dollar. Adam is trying desperately to keep the prices down, but there will need to be some changes on the WebShop to reflect these increases. Mustang Maniac prides itself on holding a huge stock and it’s all available when you order it, unfortunately all this comes at a cost. Hopefully the increases on the WebShop will be kept as low as possible, if we don’t cover our costs then we can’t afford to get the parts in. We hope you understand this very difficult decision is never taken lightly.

Customer Cars

John Wick

As this is the first build of the John Wick in the UK, this car has generated a lot of interest, just like the 60 Second Eleanor’s did when they were the car to have. We have now got most of the running gear on the car. We have replaced the front brakes with a new set of disc brakes and calipers, new rear brakes, leaf springs.the suspension needed to be replaced too. The new brake booster and reservoir have been fitted with our own proportioning valve and new brake lines. The engine has gone in and now start to get the plumbing and connections ready.

Mach1 Restoration

We returned to this little project as she moved temporarily. The car was moved to Yogi’s cave where the engine and gearbox was taken out.

Yogi gets to work with a hose down in the hot weather.

The front of the car will now need to cut back to good metal and rebuilt. We shall of course bring you updates on the progress as we go along.

“Damn Yankees American Car Club” – Summer Slam 2016

For their website click here or go to http://www.damnyankees.uk.com/

Last weekend we supported our friends and sponsored some trophies for the event. As this was on a Sunday we didn’t get a chance to post last weekend. So here are some pictures from the show. It was estimated there was around nine hundred cars at this very well supported event which has been running for thirty years now.

The Yankees club stand where most us where supporting.

Caught On Camera

Rumour has it that somebody has taken a photo of Yogi down the road checking the cars out:

Adam loves Mustangs and took a little drive to clear his head a take chill on a hot day, he always manages to pick a few ladies to go with him! He said it was a road test ready for the Damn Yankees car show! Yeah right 🙂

If you have any amusing pic you think we should post, simply email them to us and we will see what we can do.

Posted in Car Shows, Customers' Cars, Restoration, Webshop | Tagged carburettor, damn yankees, Imports, John Wick, Mach1, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, WebShop, wheel centres | 3 Comments

A Change To Work Loads

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

It makes a change to have some nice weather in the UK for a change and that itself brings a noticeable change to the work load. There hasn’t been much chance to work on all the projects this week though, it has been busy with the all important services and MOTs of cars. The yard looked pretty full at one point; on seeing that sight, what can be better than looking across a yard full of Mustangs?

Behind the scenes we have Paul “The Paint” has got round to spraying his own Mach1 ’72 ready to come back to us. So we thought we would share some more of those rare behind the scenes pics of the painting in progress. Thanks for pics Paul. 🙂

The bare metal prep work with the fine filler after Adam delivers the car to paint shop.

First of primer coats and blocking

More primer.

Base coats and top coats on the panels.

Base coat and then clear coats to the shell.

It shouldn’t be too long before we can start some work on this little lady too. It will have to get in the project queue though. But I’m sure we will be updating you on the progress of this car.

Customer Cars

We have been asked how the French car is getting on. We can say that the owner has been asked to do three weddings so far and what a place to do it. We have been sent a pic recently and thought it’s only right we share with you.

Ford Facts

The meaning:

Mustang: early 19th century: from a blend of Spanish mestengo (from mesta ‘company of graziers’) and mostrenco, both meaning ‘wild or masterless cattle’. Later a type of small, wild American horse.

Maniac: early 16th century (as an adjective): via late Latin from late Greek maniakos, from mania…. ( ˈmeɪnɪak) an obsessive enthusiast, fan, addict, devotee, aficionado…..

Ford GT

The win at Le Mans has for Ford’s GT has certainly made the headlines, and we have been pointed to a nice article on just what goes on behind the scenes and level of commitment put into their projects. we start with the main Ford headquarters in Dearborn Michigan had the building spell out “GT Wins at Le Mans.”

Continuing with the GT car theme:

Allen Park, Mich., July 13, 2016 – Development of the all new Ford GT continues unabated, with the carbon fiber supercar expected to go on sale before the end of this year. An innovation showcase in efficient EcoBoost engines, lightweighting and aerodynamics, the Ford GT is a study in functional design and active airflow management. Ford engineering supervisor Nick Terzes takes is behind the scenes at Wind Tunnel 8 in Allen Park, Michigan, where a Ford GT pre-production verification prototype undergoes wind tunnel testing. The footage is of just one of multiple sessions to prove out the extensive computer aided aerodynamic models with physical wind tunnel data, at airspeeds approaching 125 mph (200 km/h). Part of working on a program with compressed timing, Terzes and the Ford GT engineering team were in the Allen Park facility in the early a.m. hours of a Monday, demonstrating the non-stop nature of vehicle development. “Being the GT program,” Terzes said, “we effectively test 24/7.”

“The prime reason we come to the tunnel is to get the actual physical data on the vehicle,” Terzes explained. “We’ll look at interior wind-noise acoustics, and the aerodynamics of the vehicle.”

Footage in the clip below demonstrates the active rear wing, part of a suite of active aerodynamic features on the 2017 Ford GT, designed to improve performance, stability and efficiency.

“One of the great things about this car, as dynamic and beautiful as the design is, every single opening has a purpose on the car. So If you see a large grille, if you see a scoop, it’s wasn’t just put there to look good,” Terzes said. “It was put there because it has a function.”

“In the end, all these late hours, all these weekends that we work, are absolutely worth it to be a part of a program like this, and to create the ultimate GT.”

Ole Yeller

•Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang bred from Shelby GT350® – the most track-ready and road-legal Mustang ever produced

•Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang pays homage to the famous North American P-51D Mustang which served as the official pace and safety plane at the Reno National Championship Air Races

•Bob Hoover, renowned United States Air Force fighter pilot and air show performer, piloted “Ole Yeller” for more than 20 years making more than 1,000 air show performances
•Donation and sale will benefit EAA’s youth education programs, including Young Eagles
•Unique Ford Mustangs have raised $3 million for EAA youth education programs, including Young Eagles

DEARBORN, Mich., July 15, 2016 – Ford Motor Company has created the most track-ready and road-legal Ford Mustang to benefit Experimental Aircraft Association’s youth education programs, including the Young Eagles. The aviation-inspired Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang will be donated and sold via auction at the Gathering of Eagles charity event – the ninth straight year Ford has donated a car – on July 28 at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2016, the World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration.

The Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang features a custom yellow exterior finish with “Ole Yeller” accents and badging, unique carbon fiber components and mirrors projecting images of the aircraft. The interior incorporates specially designed Recaro seats, sill plates, floor mats with unique logos and aviation inspired gauges.

Bred from the ultra high-performance and limited production, Shelby GT350® Mustang, it features a 5.2L Ti-VCT V8 engine with Flat Plane Crank. Boasting the most powerful naturally-aspirated engine Ford has ever produced, the Shelby GT350 generates a heart-pounding 526 horsepower and exhilarating 429 lb-ft of torque. This powerhouse is mated to a TREMEC® 6-speed manual transmission and features a specially tuned sport suspension, making it the most track-ready, road-legal Mustang ever produced.

“This year’s one-of-a-kind Ford Mustang honours two aviation greats, the iconic and historic P-51D Mustang fighter plane, and highly decorated fighter pilot, test pilot, and air show performer, Bob Hoover, who is referred to by many as one of the greatest pilots ever to have lived,” said Edsel B. Ford II, a member of the Ford board of directors. “The Shelby GT350 Mustang, with its nimbleness, speed and aerodynamics, provided us with the perfect platform to create this tribute to the P-51D aircraft.”

“Ole Yeller,” with its bright, eye-catching yellow exterior, is one of the most recognizable P-51D Mustangs in the world. It still holds the prop plane record for coast-to-coast travel at 5 hours and 20 minutes, set in 1985. R. A. “Bob” Hoover, known as a pilot’s pilot, will be forever linked with “Ole Yeller.” Hoover is widely considered the founding father of modern aerobatics and thrilled airshow fans piloting “Ole Yeller” for more than 20 years. In 1997, Hoover sold “Ole Yeller” to his good friend John Bagley of Rexburg, Idaho. “Ole Yeller” still flies frequently and is based at the Legacy Flight Museum in Rexburg, Idaho.

The auction of the Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang will be the pinnacle of the EAA Gathering of Eagles gala. The event annually draws more than 1,000 aviation enthusiasts in support of EAA’s youth education programs, which inspire young people to become engineers, aviators, astronauts, scientists and innovators – the aviation pioneers of tomorrow.

All proceeds from the sale of the car will benefit EAA’s youth education programs, including the Young Eagles, which has provided free introductory flights to 2 million young people since 1992, helping grow the next generation of aviators. “We’re truly grateful Ford is, and has been, such a committed sponsor of EAA and AirVenture for more than 16 years now,” said Jack Pelton, EAA CEO and chairman of the board. “With its ninth Mustang donation, Ford has definitely delivered something exceptional that any auto or aviation enthusiast would love to own. The Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang will allow EAA to provide support to our valuable programs helping us grow the next generation of aviators.”

The Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang joins eight other one-of-a-kind Mustangs created by the Ford design and engineering teams for the auction in support of EAA youth education. Ford vehicles donated at EAA AirVenture events have collectively raised $3 million.

Previous years’ unique aviation themed Mustangs created to support EAA’s youth education programs, including Young Eagles, were:
•2008 – Mustang AV8R, with cues from F-22 Raptor, which helped introduce the glass-roof canopy and delivered an auction contribution of $500,000
•2009 – AV-X10 “Dearborn Doll” Mustang, crafted in honor of the World War II aircraft
•2010 – Two automotive icons – the late Carroll Shelby, former U.S. Air Force flight instructor, and Jack Roush, longtime P-51 pilot – collaborated for the first time to create the SR-71 Blackbird Mustang inspired by the legendary reconnaissance jet
•2011 – Blue Angels Mustang, created to celebrate 100 years of U.S. naval aviation
•2012 – Red Tails Mustang, to pay homage to Tuskegee Airmen – courageous squadron of P-51 Mustang pilots who were the United States’ first African-American military airmen
•2013 – U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds Edition Mustang, built to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration team
•2014 – F-35 Lightning II Edition Mustang, which featured design cues from the world’s most advanced multirole fighter jet – the F-35 Lightning
•2015 – Apollo Edition Mustang paid homage to the Apollo spaceflight program, which delivered astonishing innovations in technology and landed the first human on the moon.

Posted in Articles, Customers' Cars, Ford Facts, News, Photos, Restoration | Tagged Dearborn, Ford, Ford Facts, GT40, Mach1, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, Ole Yeller, primer | 4 Comments

The John Wick Car

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We have had a couple of cars this week that have come in to Mustang Maniac for their annual check ups and MOT’s. This makes a little change from the heavy panel work of the last couple of weeks. We start with a first for us, we have been delivered a car that we have been looking forward to getting our hands. This customer’s car is going to be a John Wick clone. The painted body was not handled by ourselves on this occasion, but we get to work with a freshly painted body. Yogi backed the lorry to the workshop so we could unload the dolly mounted chassis straight into the new home for a while until we start to fit the running gear back onto to the car. First of all a little about the John Wick car. The car is in fact a 1969 Mach1 and not a Boss 429 (7.0 litre) v8 as mentioned in the film. The subtle give away was the hood scoop not being big enough, also the Boss 429 didn’t have a rear spoiler either.

The Movie Car

The Clone

We are looking forward to getting this little lady ready for the owner. We have also been delivered a huge selection of parts that had been removed prior to us taking delivery, some of which have seen better days though. We will of course inspect those parts carefully before re-assembly back to the car. We will be bringing you plenty of updates on this car as we go along.

1970 Fastback

This lady has been come into us for some tender loving care and check up. The fantastic thing is that the owner of this car has owned it since 1973. Perhaps one of the longest owned cars we have seen.

The interior of this car has red velour door cards and a matching velour headline in fantastic condition. The retro look that is quite sort after is indeed the real deal here and looks fantastic on this car we must say. Another nice touch here is from The Mustang Owners Club 1993 competition plaque mounted just in front of the gear shift on the centre console.

Under the car is very tidy indeed considering it has been in UK with our weather conditions as they are. The rear chassis even has the original tie down brackets still mounted which are virtually always removed by the dealerships when taking delivery. A very nice original touch. The wheel centres look to have been stencilled on to the classic mag wheels.

stencil wheels

tie down bracket

Big Block – Big Problems?

Here is a question for you. How long does it take to fit a pair of headers on to a big block? Well, out of the car we could do it with a couple of us on each side easily under half an hour even with the four bolts per port and not the standard two. But, the big block in a ’69 428 Big Block is tight, and we really do mean tight. In fact it had taken Yogi and Paul a complete day to fit the engine into the bay. The headers are ceramic coated long headers and is impossible to get into the engine bay with the headers attached. The process was to have the engine lowered in and the headers bolted on in stages to check the fit in the engine bay. It was noticed that the headers were resting on the inside of the shock towers, so some of the plating had to be very carefully cut away to allow the fit. We had to repeat the same process four times in total before we were happy with the clearance, all be it just tiny millimetres in places. As the engine has had a full engine rebuild we don’t expect any vibration, so the minimal clearance will not be a problem.

With the headers in place we will need to remake the exhaust to fit the new alignment of the headers.

Models:

DeAgostini – Shelby GT500 1:8th Scale

It has been a little while since we have updated the model progress, the recent ten or so issues has been the duplicate of the other door, seat, wheel with some single chassis components. So we skip a number of issues as it’s a little pointless to show the same thing again. But the latest set of issues now start to show significant progress with the build. These parts are now being screwed together and make some quite nice parts. You can see the rest of the build so far to click here.

Posted in 1:8th Scale Model, Customers' Cars, Service | Tagged big block, Boss 429, headers, John Wick, Mach1, movies, Mustang, Mustang Maniac | 7 Comments

Cars & Prom Night

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

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 & 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.

Posted in Car Shows, Customers' Cars, News, Parts, Photos | Tagged Brexit, Coupe, Lakenheath, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, phones, stock item, USA | 4 Comments

Creature Comforts

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

At Mustang Maniac we aim to bring you a level of calmness after a week of political unrest which should make you chill and forget it all. We have a quite a few pictures this week for you, not so many words and a special promotion at the end of the post. Yep, Adam has yet another freebie for his customers that will come in handy for everybody, honestly it will. The refurbished storage barn of Adam’s has now started to fill up, another project car has moved in next to Chris’s also on a rotisserie. There is a side bet on which project car will get done first, but don’t tell Chris! 😉

Customer Cars

The Mach1 rebuild has had her rear end back on a while ago which looks pretty good and the owner is more than happy with the progress. He was also down on Saturday morning with us to help dismantle the front of the car so we can get the engine out with the gearbox all in one go next week. But, first that means disconnecting the engine from the car which is the pipes, wires, mechanical bits etc. So the first pic we have the hood on and then a few pictures of the progress as it goes along. The air-con unit is a huge weight to be added to the car, we are pretty certain that it won’t be going back on again as far as we know.

Here the air-con unit and brackets are removed and carefully stored. The carb was taken off and ready for the lift plate to go on to pull the big ol’ engine out.

There was an issue with the fittings on the pipes, they were so rusted in that undoing the bolts sheared the heads off. Plan B was called into action, cut a couple of perished bits out of the away, just for now until we can get to them properly with the engine out.

With all the pipes and connections removed the engine is ready to be lifted out.

Yogi was talking through the process with the owner on what needed to be done at various points. The next stage was bit daunting, but logical when thinking about it. You don’t often get to see the dash coming out of a Mach1 so here we are, the process. There are a number of screws that need to be undone to slide the dash pad off, which was in surprising good condition and will clean up good as new we are sure. However, as always there is one screw that didn’t want to play ball. The owner spend a fair amount of time getting various drills to drill the head of so the dash could be removed. It’s amazing how a single screw can literally screw up your time scales. If we were going to replace the dash it would be no problem of course as it would just be ripped off. But, you just can’t do that when the part(s) are good and will be reused. Pulling the dash out we found (here comes the tenuous link to the title) the third rodent nest, but this time with no dead animal.

We are now certain that there will be no more places for the little creatures to hide as that is now all metal exposed. The smell was a little “off” should we say, but the clean up revealed some very interesting points.

The nest was made from the dash insulation padding as we see a few times on old stored up cars. The rodents had not touched a single wire. The owner is a seriously lucky guy in that respect, not a single tooth mark on anything, amazing! The other surprising point was the cowl section. We often see cars that are rusty the cowl will rot out regardless of the model of car, it’s a pretty much a dead cert and we were ready to see daylight. Nope, it’s rock solid and almost factory fresh. We couldn’t believe it, considering some of the other rust damage to the car the most obvious and most hidden part was absolutely fine. Again it’s about time the owner had a break on this car, the result of which has saved a serious amount of work by not having to swap it all out. The driver side needed to come out for some “homework” to be cleaned up. The plastic is brittle with age and needs a bit of TLC when removing, which is where this type of work can keep the costs down by doing this yourself. Did you know that the Mach1 was the first to use a printed circuit board for the dash? Once the dash was pulled forward we could see the back of the cluster in all it’s glory.

It looks there has been a minor repair to the dash, but nothing we haven’t seen before and in fact this was a pretty neat repair with the jump wire and labelled up nicely. The metal work at the back of the dash once it was all pulled out was also in fantastic shape. A real result.

The radio/8 track was last hing out from the dash (for now), again a little know how by Yogi got it out within a few seconds, the owner had taken a little and not got that far being very careful not to damage the sides or the unit. It’s always that much easier when you know how.

A good days work by the owner. 🙂

Return of FatAss

Nope this the name that the other half of the Bully Brothers has called his car which has fat tyres and rear stance that demands a second look.

But the reason this little lady was in for was some new back-end lights. Yogi has his lights done a little while ago and of course the two cars need to match. These after market smoke lenses add something very different, especially when they match the truck spoiler. A very simple update and a big change to look at. What do you think?

Before and After, what you see here is a beautiful FatAss! Before you ask the colour, it was mixed especially for this car and was called “Dragons Blood”, a unique car colour that suits it perfectly.

’69 Convertible Springs

Once of the very common changes we make are the rear springs. It’s not to often we see a ’69 convertible in for a change of springs that still has the original part number on them. After decades of use they only needed changing now.

Promotion

Adam has had an incredibly handy promotional item made up for a give away. These are portable battery chargers for a mobile phone. How many times have you gone round a car show taken lots of pictures to find out your battery is almost flat? Yep, we all have seen a low warning on our phones, this 5v 2600mAh booster will top up your phone. It’s a solid plastic car with a single cable that charges one end in, and boost the other end out. When being charged the red LED will flash, when boosting the phone the Blue LED will be on. Not just for car shows, but anywhere you need a little extra power, holidays, day out, streaming, low signal areas draining your battery, camping etc. The best bit? It has your favourite Mustang supplier logo on it.

How do you get one of these battery boosters?

Simple, just order over £300 of anything from Mustang Maniac online, put a note on the order form that you want a booster and it’s all yours, while stocks last that is. Already just under fifty have been sent out from the batch. If you want to buy one, email Adam and I dare say he might sell you one. He don’t know this bit has been put on the blog, yet!

Forum

As it’s car season we want to see some pics of your pride and joy on our forum. Not just that if you have questions you can ask the Mustang Gurus on there too. They will answer and they are nice guys, honestly. click here for the link or cut and past this into your browser:

https://mustangmaniac.co.uk/forum/

The forum is for members only, it takes only a valid email address to join for FREE, then you have access to some of the best Mustang Maniac minds out there. The membership stops lots of undesirables post spam, moaning or posting rubbish on there. Buy, sell, meetings, parts info its all there for you.

Coming Soon:

We are looking to do a series of one to one’s with Mustang Maniac, asking the guys about them and their cars. We have a VERY special article coming up with Adam talking about the car that started the whole Mustang Maniac empire. The car? It was called “Enos 2”. This was the original restoration decades ago before pretty much anybody else was doing it to this level of workmanship. It’s going to be a fascinating insight.

Posted in Blog, Customers' Cars, Forum, News, Sales, Webshop | Tagged air con, barn, carb, dash pad, Dragons's Blood, instrument cluster, Mach1, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, rodents | 4 Comments

Racking and Racing

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We decided that this week was going to rearrange some cars in Adams refurbished storage shed. The racking was used at another location and has been brought to the yard. the old storage was moved out and the racks put back in place. The cars were allocated their positions for now just to get them out of the elements and back into storage.

We decided to help Chris out with his car to move that in from the elements too and move the car and the rotisserie into the storage shed so it can be worked on out of the rain. Adam mentioned that was all going to go in one go Chris thought he was joking!

But the lorry was bought round and the process to carefully move the car started. The car and rotisserie were carefully pulled onto the back of the truck and driven round to the shed. Chris was happier, perhaps it was relief to see the car back on solid ground again. He didn’t need to worry, we have done this all before.

Customer Cars:

The next victim awaits her turn to go into the panel shop, but that won’t be for a while yet.

’70 Mach1

The car has had its final welding to the rear section and sits on her own chassis now. Yogi then got to work and decided to rip the front of the car off.

Dangerous DIY:

We had a Mustang in that had a self fitted Borgeson steering conversion. The problem was it was leaking fluid and badly but we could find the exact spot. We checked all the seals and pipe fittings and all was in place until we spotted that the Rag Joint was not fitted. Without this flexing joint it causes stress on the main shaft and fractured the metal. From the main pic you can just about make out the hairline crack on the shaft. For steering this is critical and would potentially cause an accident. The shaft is filled with fluid under pressure, we connected it back up just to show you what was happening inside the fittings.

The video here is a only a few seconds long, but you get the idea.

Ford does it again, win at Le Mans 50 years later

Exactly 50 years ago this week Ford shook the European racing world, upending Ferrari’s dominance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Ford didn’t just win the world’s most prestigious endurance race in 1966, the company swept it, taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in a photo finish that remains one of the most vivid images in the history of competitive Motorsports.

Now, five decades later, Ford is back in full factory force, campaigning four Ford GTs (numbers 66, 67, 68 and 69) that share quite a bit with a limited production street machine that select buyers will start being receiving in late 2016, the new GT – powered by the same engine as in the 2015 Mustang. The potential for the race and street car to again be associated with winning Le Mans was almost too much to hope for given this is Ford’s first year back since 1967 (the company won that year, too, and also in ’68 and ’69, but those last two wins were privately campaigned GT40s with no factory support). The last time Ford competed at Le Mans it took three years for the automaker to win, after disappointing results in 1964 and 1965. But the Fords went on to qualify 1st, 2nd, 4th & fifth. The number 68 Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA GT earned pole position with the fastest time in the LM GTE Pro Class, besting the competition from Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Ferrari and Porsche. In fact, the GT’s lap times were so good race organisers penalised the cars with 22 pounds of extra weight for the race, plus a restriction to their turbo boost pressure. Race officials also allowed the Aston Martin and Chevrolet Corvette teams to increase their performance after seeing the qualifying lap times. A penalty on the Ferrari for showing the wrong position number on the digital display on the side of the car too. The same penalty the Ford suffered (and was penalised for) the night before. Like all European racing the finishing order isn’t always as it first appears (again, just like in 1966). But, as of this preparing this blog there’s no conclusion as to where the Ferrari will finish in relation to the Fords. But it’s possible that Ford could get their fabled 1-2-3 finish, again.

The Race:

The 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans probably won’t go down in history as the race’s most exciting start. A downpour just before the flag dropped had the cars starting under caution behind the safety car, though within an hour the track dried and the field ran at full power. The Ford GTs, even with their additional weight penalties and reduced boost were looking good, battling with the Ferrari 488s and Porsche 911s for lead position (except for the 67 car, which had transmission problems just before the race began and ended up over 20 laps behind the others).

Six hours later the story was much the same, with the 66, 68 and 69 cars oscillating between first, second and third place in their class, with only the number 82 Ferrari 488 keeping it interesting. The twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 in the GTs emits quite a distinctive exhaust note as they travel past the stands on the pit straight. It’s not as throaty as the V8-powered Corvette, but also not as whiny as the Ferrari’s V8s and the Porsche’s flat 6s. By midnight, 9 hours after the race started, the number 82 Ferrari is leading the 68 Ford GT, with GT number 69 about a lap back and GT numbers 66 and 67 well off the lead.

The pattern of the 68 Ford GT staying within a minute or less of the 82 Ferrari remained consistent throughout the night and morning. In the middle of the night there was a penalty assessed against the number 68 GT for not displaying the right position number on the car, but the effect of the penalty was made up by the Ford’s performance in short order. Then, at exactly 10:30 a.m., Joey Hand takes the 68 Ford GT past the Ferrari on the Mulsanne Straight and holds its lead through the chicane and front straight, much to the delight of the Ford fans. That was the last lead change for the LM GTE Pro Class. The 68 car remained in front for the rest of the race, with the 69 and 67 car slowly gaining ground on the Ferrari, placing the Fords in 1, 3 and 4 place. Of course the win is great, but there’s no denying how close to a 1-2-3 finish Ford came, exactly 50 years after the first one.

Congratulations to Ford.

Ford Facts:

Henry Ford was great friends with Thomas Edison – who is famous for inventing the long life light bulb. In fact he invented many more things like the phonograph, the movie camera and the sound movie camera (although he preferred silent movies as he was stone deaf).

Henry used to work for Edison in the early years and was greatly encouraged by him to continue his work on the automobile. As a reward for this valuable support, Henry always gave Thomas Edison the first automobile from each new run of production – a Model T, Model A etc ……and a top of the range Lincoln. While Edison preferred to use the Model T throughout his later years, Mrs Edison preferred to be ‘driven in the Lincoln’.

Henry bought a winter house next to the Edison’s home in Ford Myers Florida so they could share each other’s company and ideas while escaping from the cold Detroit winters. After Edison’s death, Henry never went back to his winter house.

Ford still owns a number of apartments in Florida – used by engineers on vehicle testing assignments – not being able to test during the cold Detroit winter months these apartments save cost over hotel accommodation. The apartments are available to Ford employees and their families to rent during the summer months when no Florida testing takes place.

What’s the connection between Henry Ford and heart transplants?

Henry Ford was great friends with Charles Lindbergh the world-famous aviator and engineer (Henry only ever flew once and Lindbergh was at the controls). so what, you might say? Henry helped Lindbergh in a number of ways through money, sponsorship and other support and also by giving him a new car and caravan to find peace in the countryside when the pressures of the media got to him after his solo Atlantic flight. So what, you say (again)?

Lindbergh was lifetime friends with Alexis Carrel – an eminent French surgeon and medical pioneer (he provided Lindbergh with sanctuary in France when he was mobbed by the media on landing in the Spirit of St Louis). Carrel was struggling to find a way of conducting open heart and other organ surgery due to blood clotting the pump used to by-pass the organ. Lindbergh stepped in and invented, developed and produced a ‘glass’ pump which completely solved the problem of clotting.

Answer – Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Alexis Carrel….heart surgery then latterly, transplants made possible by the pump invented by Lindbergh!

Carrel went on to develop life saving procedures for suturing arteries and also pioneered the treatment of open and infected war wounds – saving many lives in both world wars and beyond.

Lindbergh had a troubled life, his oldest son being kidnapped and murdered, he fell out with President Roosevelt over the Second World War and was plagued by the media his whole life.

The car and caravan given to Lindbergh now resides in the Henry Ford Museum along with a replica of the Spirit of St Louis aircraft. The original aircraft is in the Smithsonian Museum.

Coming Soon

Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Blog, Customers' Cars, Ford Facts, Restoration | Tagged borgeson, Ford, GT40, Le Mans, Mach1, Mustang Maniac, panel shop, Yogi | 2 Comments

Yogi On The Drag

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

The last couple of weeks have been busier than usual and it was decided that the guys wanted to go and play. So just what is the best place to go and play? The answer was quite obvious to Yogi, “Santa Pod” drag strip racing for him. So Mustang Maniac went on tour with a few Mustangs.

So Yogi, Paul, Stuart & Claire, Mason, Mart, Sam & Steff all arranged to camp overnight last Saturday night at Santa Pod Classic Ford Show with a “run what you bring”. Yogi wanted to run his Mach1 down the strip after a few changes. The guys arrived in their three Mustangs, Saab and a Vauxhall. They parked up and got the tents up ready for the evening.

With the essentials completed Yogi wasted no time in swapping his rear tyres over for an old set of rims and a some old tyres he found. Yogi drove to the fire up lane and waited for his turn to tear up the strip. Sam, Paul and Stuart pushed the car up until it was almost Yogi’s turn to run, the first of his three runs.

Most of the cars here such as the older Fords have race this, or race that, NOS piped in and turbo’s etc. Yogi is running his car against some of these super fast and highly pampered cars. The results were pretty spectacular for his first run where he was holding back with 12.04 time which was the fastest of the day for a fair while. No added bolt-ons and he was still faster than some of the other dedicated drag racing cars there.

He was fairly pleased with the time since it was the first time he had hit the drag strip for three years, but he was complaining he couldn’t get traction of the line. The second run was against a Subaru turbo rear engine and rear wheel drive dedicated rocket. We tried to do a slow mo shot of this run but it didn’t come out to good. But we will try to sort that out and upload it to our YouTube Channel when we get round to it very soon. Yogi run a red light in his eagerness to get going and you could just see the car loosing all grip and not going anywhere, in true Yogi style his still carried on with a time of 11.4 nevertheless.

The last run was the best of the day and Yogi was blowing the cobwebs out his fur and getting the hang of it. He nailed a 11.01 this time, but was unhappy with the tyres that were now completely shot to bits and gave no traction at all.

In fact the data sheets shows he was wheel spinning up to the 100 feet (or nearly two seconds) marker before he actually hooked up any real power. Yogi said that with decent tyres there was easily another one and half seconds to be found.

We wandered around the fire up lane took a few photo’s of some very nice cars to share with you.

Later in the afternoon it was Fords only racing.

The evening was set with a single can of beer each (yeah right), there was a the drive home the next day to think of too. Just for the Yogi Fan Club we have the following:

Sunday saw many more cars turn up to play and some of the dedicated drag cars that were still not as quick as Yogi’s time set.

Somebody happened to mention that to Yogi and we got this:

The stalls and displays were in full flow with some trailer queens being brought to the show just to show them off.

Racing was pretty spectacular as well with some very nice very fast cars.

Jeff from Taz Racing was there showing them how it should be done. http://www.tazracing.co.uk/ Jeff , Yogi says: Hi!

There was a pretty awesome bit of kit there in the form of Fire Force 3, the worlds fasted jet car. The camera got a bit shaky as people were trying to muscle in and get a good a position as we got to see this car run. It does settle down again though.

It made the run in just a fraction over 5 seconds!

A great time was had by the guys and there was estimated 100,000 people there over the weekend.

Customer Cars:

The ’70 Mach1 has had some serious work done to the rear end now and is looking pretty darn good.

Paul the Paints Mach1 has had a new rear end fitted and is also looking pretty darn good too.

To finish up a pretty big post we have PJ & Enos taking up station in the Yogi cave!

Posted in Customers' Cars, News, Our Cars, Video, YouTube | Tagged 1/4 mile, beer, drag strip, Enos, Fire Force 3, Ford, Mach1, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, NOS, Santa Pod, Yogi | 4 Comments

Moving To All WebShop Ordering

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Over the weekend at the Enfield Pageant we spoke to a lot of customers who came to see us and asked their opinions about the WebShop. With the very positive responses we were getting a decision was made, Mustang Maniac will be moving with the times and the internet age. It is our intention to make your parts ordering as simple and efficient as possible. In order to do that we are going to transition all our sales over to our WebShop ordering service. This is for a number of reasons;

We are increasing our already extensive current Classic Mustang stock levels, as well as stocking some of the more common parts of the recent model Mustangs.
When you click on the WebShop what you see “Currently in stock” that means we have that item on the shelves, no need to call us and check. The stock is instantly updated as soon as any item is purchased. If you ring us to ask if something is in stock, we check the item on the WebShop in exactly the same way as you do.
The WebShop staff does not answer the phone as they are busy getting the daily deliveries ready and organising the stock. If they were to answer the phones, the deliveries could be delayed which isn’t acceptable for our customers. For instance today we have had 274 missed calls and the day isn’t over yet (4.30pm as we start to prepare this post). We missed the calls due to the fact that we had a big container delivery with three fully loaded pallets inside. All of those stock items have to be loaded onto the system to update the availability. Each item is then stored in location which could easily take a couple of days. That’s not an excuse, we are just realistic about the priorities at the time. If you have seen all of our stock locations then you will know what a big undertaking it is.
Adam is now spending more of his time fixing, restoring, collecting, delivering and buying cars.
Customers are ringing to ask how to do repairs and what parts they might need. Obviously this is virtually an impossible question to answer without seeing the car or even seeing the problem. To help with this we recently set up an email service which has been doing very well so far. Adam is often answering the emails in the evenings or where ever he is around the world at the time (literally). Please by all means send in your emails with pictures of the problem and as much detail as possible and we will do our best to get you the parts you need, even if you don’t know what you need. It’s so much easier than trying to explain it on the phone.
No more messing around taking payments over the phone, the WebShop is fully automated.
Order your parts where ever you are, sitting on a bus, train, or in a cafe having a coffee.
Order day or night when it suits you, rather than being tied to our opening hours to place an order.

However, Mustang Maniac fully appreciates that you may not find exactly what you are looking for on the much bigger and new improved WebShop, We are pleased to say that we have also had limited number of the Scott Drake 2016 Retail Catalogues delivered to us this week, so if you wish to order a copy of the catalogue, email us via the WebShop and we will post one out to you while stocks last. The other much quicker alternative is to download the catalogue which will be added to the WebShop as soon as we can get it updated, hopefully by the end of the week. In the meantime you can get it first from our blog and download the PDF from the “Download” menu above, or click the icon below to view the full catalogue PDF. This is a large download of 43mb so please be patient.

The office phones will not be redundant, they will be used for booking in the cars for a service, accident repairs, full restorations or part restorations etc. all of which by their very nature require a conversation prior to the vehicle arriving at the workshops.

We have had some calls to ask about the standard postage charges we use. One example is we were even asked if we can “nip down to the post office and post them to me so it makes it cheaper”. Unfortunately this isn’t a viable option for our business, by the time we drive to the Post Office which is six miles down the road, register the package and pay the postage you would only save about £3. That’s without our time and effort we could be putting too much better use elsewhere and all for a part that costs much less than the cost of the postage.

Most people already know this, we have various options to help out our customers who do not wish to pay the postal charges that we pass on to our customers;

Make arrangements to call in and pick it up from our office.
Make your own arrangements to have the parts collected and delivered to your location of choice.
Rather than ordering the small amounts, order a larger package with couple more parts which would still cost the same, oil filter or spark plugs perhaps?

We are more than happy to do any of the above for you. We are confident that this will make things much easier for you to order what you need, and to get in contact with us. We do listen to you and hope you like the new process as it comes fully into operation. A big thanks to everybody who put up with our questions at the show.

A Mid Week Treat

We had seen this video clip posted on our Facebook page, it’s only a few seconds long but it’s well worth a look. We are sure that you will be singing the song after you have watched it. Janette Semerdjian is Australian and owns this very nice 1965 Coupe which had been converted to a right hand drive.