Back To Front

Posted on January 16, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We decided to let the public into the inner secrets of Mustang Maniac body shop, (before you ask, no it’s not Yogi’s body we will be exposing). For the later cars this particular job is a bit more straight forward, but not so easy for the early cars of ’64 – ’66 for the same job. We are going to show you most of the process on the ’71 Mach how we replace the rotted out cowl section.

Yogi has been taking the front of the car apart and has been waiting for the sprayed cowl to come back. This is the first glimpse of the colour this car will be finished in. We coated all the nearby areas in Red Oxide while it was all exposed as well as the bottom of cowl sections.

The lower cowl was located in its correct position to make sure any final adjustments were made prior to any welding.

The top sections are then also positioned and final adjustments made before the welding starts.

The welding was then finished up and ground down which then enabled the rest of the front inner panels to be fully welded into position and yet more seam sealing to be done.

The fender to cowl extensions were in a pretty poor shape, these vital little sections also give strength to the front of the car. They were shot blasted to see the exact level of rust damage and the old rotten parts cut away ready for the new repair plates to be welded back into place.

in place with the rotted section showing

The repair plates are cut and profiled then welded into place with final shaping to follow the correct contours. The standard Red Oxide paint was of course applied before fitting.

The final fittings and adjustments made before the welding into place.

That’s all there is to it, but don’t say that to Yogi though!

Customers Cars

Next up was the old friend, the previously rusty ’70 fastback where work was being done on the back of a car. You may remember the post “Yogi Takes on Rust Worm”. This car needed a complete rear end rebuild due to the rust not to mention the rodent encampments, we have now got back to work on her again. Here we have the old chassis drop downs completely replaced and the new panels treated to a generous coating of Red Oxide and seam sealer before being welded back into place.

The contoured trunk section was too rotten to put back in place, so we needed to have a new panel which needed to have the final shaping adjustments before being welded into place with the chassis rail drop downs.

With the trunk drop down panel in place we could get the final parts of the floor panel in place inside the car.

Just in case you forgot what it looked like before:

The YFC

Ok, we have had requests for more puppy pics and a request for more Yogi Fan Club pics. As we have had lots of pup pics recently we thought it was time for the bear. This was taken after he ventured out of his cave, down to his favorite feeding ground after hunting out his meal. Some witnesses at the time said that he likes his steak “so rare it’s still running away from him”!

Thanks for the emails, keep them coming. 🙂

Cartoons

We have some very kind customers who drop us off some great gifts, and these two hand drawn, framed cartoons were no exception. They are now hanging in the office for all to enjoy. A big thanks to yet another “happy Mustang Maniac customer” as he wanted to be known who had taken a number of hours to create these for us.

Thank You.

Posted in Customers' Cars, News, Repairs | Tagged cartoons, chassis, Mach1, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, rust, Yogi, Yogi Fan Club | 8 Comments

Projects

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

The New Year chaos has settled down now and things are getting back to normal. The Pups have been requested yet again and we will put a few more pics up of them at the end of the post. But, as this is as Mustang based blog let’s get down to business with the cars.

Customer’s Cars:

Yogi has been busy working on the accident damaged 64 1/2 car. The engine was fitted back into the car and was plumed in and wired back up.

The whole front right corner was basically replaced with the chassis legs, fender, inner wing panels, radiator, lights, headlight mouldings and trims, bumper, front panels, various mountings, hinges, fixings etc.. the list goes on. But, what we have now is a superb looking classic 1964 1/2 Mustang. The full story start to finish can be seen by clicking here or going to the Menu under “Customers Cars – 1964 1/2 Coupe RTA Repair”

As we get a lot of requests for this now here it is: Before and After.

Our New Car Project:

We are aiming to bring you a complete build of a car with nothing but new parts. This will be a two-year project and we are looking forward to it. What is the car? It’s a Shelby GT500. We wished it could be a real one but this is going to be a 1:8th scale replica model from DeAgostini. Click here for their link to the website where you can order from them and subscribe for the offers if you want too. Their advertising campaign that has started this week on national TV and press sees the start of the project. We have created a page under the Menu “Projects” where we will be adding pictures and process of the build as we go along as well as appearing on the blog as we go too on a monthly basis at least. Each issue will contain step by step build guides as well as articles on Mustang, Shelby, other muscle cars etc.

The parts in this issue are extremely well detailed.

We will start the build once we have a couple of issues to hand. We have created a page in the Project Menu – “Shelby GT500 1:8th Scale Model” or just click here.

Yogi’s 1969 Mach1:

Yogi had his hibernation over Christmas and came back into the yard carrying bits that make him happy. Some would say that would be food or beer (which of course is always good). But the smile was because he had car bits, not any old car bits, some of these parts we haven’t had more than a day or so before he grabbed them. These are our custom-made LED ’69 rear lights with reflectors and the brand new smoked lenses we are now stocking that haven’t even been put onto the WebShop yet. Looks like we have sold them before we got the chance to sell them on if that makes sense.

The original red lenses and the new Smoked look.

Update: 12/1/2016

Thanks to Nathan who correctly pointed out that what we mean was the original style or look of the ’69 red lenses. The originals are darker than the these clearer style ones we have in stock as well. We are also thinking about getting some darker new styled red lenses as well if there is a demand for them. Please let us know if it’s what you are after, so in theory you could have four or so choices of ’69 lenses, orginal stock re, clearer red, smoked or darker red. Just for comparison.

The clearer style red and the potential darker red ’69 lenses.

Yogi took no time to take out his old bulbs and fit the new ones which have totally changed the look of the car.

We took a few pics with the flash to show the LED’s in place on the car.

You can buy yours from the WebShop – https://mustangmaniac.co.uk/part/36/8057/euro_led_69

Fact:

Did you know that the black line detail on the back of these cars glows white under light?

The next job was the new fuel lines he was treated to by his family.

To give it more power Yogi said “I need a billet gas pedal”.

New Stock:

We have been waiting for the delivery of our new stock look modern radios. These are an exact replica of the original fitted radios that have full modern capability. You can switch the radio frequencies between countries and there is even a BlueTooth version coming soon. The fitting instructions are very detailed and the feed back so far is they are pretty amazing.

This is the early ’64 model fitting:

’64 Style here – https://mustangmaniac.co.uk/part/0/8562/new_repro_radio_64

’65 – ’66 Style here – https://mustangmaniac.co.uk/part/0/8561/new_repro_radio_65_66

Specifications:

Small size, BIG features!

Looks original but offers today’s technology
Quality chrome faceplate and knobs exactly match the original
AM/FM dial scale looks like the original
AM or FM band selected with slide bar like the original
10 presets (5 AM, 5 FM)
Maximum power = 180 watts RMS (45 watts x 4 speakers 4Ω, 14.4V, 1kHz)
Uses original antenna
Fits in dash without any modifications
Digitally tuned AM/FM stereo front end provides stable, high quality reception
Analog controls look and feel like the original radio
All controls easily accessible. Volume, bass, treble, balance, fader and tuning from original-looking controls
LED dial lights will never need replacing
Memory retention for user settings is more than 40 years
3 RCA jacks for left channel, right channel, and sub-woofer line outs
3.5 mm phone jack for input from iPod, smart phone or MP3 player
Switch selectable for 1,2,3 or 4 speakers
Switch selectable for North America or Europe mode
Includes a 6 foot 3.5mm male-to-male auxiliary cable with every radio

We recommend that you don’t use the original speakers with this unit.

Pups:

Last but NOT least a few pics of the puppies as promised:

The runt – Enos

Posted in Blog, Customers' Cars, News, Parts, Webshop | Tagged 1:8th Scale, Blog, customers cars, Enos, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, puppies, radio, RTA, Shelby, WebShop, Yogi | 7 Comments

Happy New Year

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We hope you had a Great Christmas and relaxing few days off before we start the forthcoming year. So we would like to grab this opportunity to wish you a very Happy New Year.

So what have we been up to in the mean time before the festivities got a chance to throw a spanner in the works. (See what I did there? Spanner, mechanics etc!) Anyway moving on starting with the cars; we are carrying on with the Mach1 Lime project car of Paul the Paint:

Mach1 Lime ’71

The car had to be cut back to the good metal, this is nothing new of course, but it can be more hassle to cut a part panel than just replace the whole thing. Yes, there are those who will say keep the original, but if you are cutting it out then you may as well replace it with fresh metal. Anyway, the front of the car didn’t have a lot left by the time Yogi got busy with the grinder.

The Plenum in the car was removed to check the internal part of the firewall and ready for the cowl to be welded back into place.

We think that somebody woke Yogi up after his Christmas dinner because like a man possessed he took the cowl out to expose the remaining parts of the front section.

The inner panels were then welded into place and seam sealed.

There will obviously be more when we get the cowl in place.

Other News:

For the new year we will be selling some items through “eBay”. What these items will be we are not sure yet. They could be items from around the shop we no longer need or have too many of, perhaps a bargain from the WebShop. So we have now created a menu at the top of the page “For Sale – “eBay” “. This has our Seller ID (a temp one for now) and a list of the items we will be selling from time to time. Keep checking and follow us as a seller to make sure you don’t miss a thing. Click the link below to go to the Seller profile.

We have a little something on there for now just as a proof of concept or trial if you like.

Pups:

Two requests recently to us, one we are quite happy about the other we are not so sure about.

The first request is for more of the pups, so not wishing to disappoint we have a few more pics as they are growing up so fast now.

Meet “Enos” – the runt of the litter!

The second is the YFC “Yogi Fan Club” where we have had a couple of emails asking for more pics of him. We can’t believe we are seeing the odd comment about him and the few emails arriving too. We didn’t want to do this, but as it was requested how can we refuse? Adam did say “Easily” by the way in response to that question!

The first picture taken by the Christmas tree where he was seen lurking around looking for the Mustang workshop manual he was promised or was it beer. The other after he realised that workshop manual didn’t show him anything that he didn’t already know, or was it that he had found the beer? 🙂

(editor: *** shakes head***)

Where is the manual / beer?

do not feed the bear!

Model Mustangs Article

Just after the Mustang launch, various die-cast model makers around the world sought Ford permission to produce models/toys of the now famous Mustang. While Ford did grant permission for some convertible and coupe versions to be made, their main focus at the time was on the newly introduced fastback. In the UK, both Dinky (model number 161) and Corgi (model numbers 320/325) managed to obtained rights to issue their models in 1965. Corgi at the time was considered to be the best likeness – with working suspension, jewel headlamps, opening doors and folding seats. The very early Corgi versions had wire wheels and some even had a Corgi dog seated on the parcel shelve. Have a guess at how many different Corgi versions of the 1965 Mustang Fastback were issued during 65/66?

The answer…..

Six initial models: silver, green, blue, purple metallic along with a flower power design (well it was the sixties after all!) and a ‘racing’ version in white with red stripes (the model came with various numbers so the buyer could put their own special number on). In addition, Corgi made all of the above as re-issues during the sixties using differing wheels and packaging (some models were re-issued a couple of times). They also produced what is now an extremely rare version of the racing car with extra stripes along the rocker panels.

It’s fair to say that they are all now extremely collectible – mainly by adults trying to recapture the memories of the toys they played with when they were young.

To finish

We asked Adam what he enjoyed about holidays best – he said the quiet roads, “While I was out I took a couple of pics early in the moring”. We can see his very good point here.

Posted in Articles, Blog, eBay, News, Our Cars, Sales | Tagged eBay, Enos, Mach1, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, WebShop, Yogi, Yogi Fan Club | 3 Comments

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Mustang Maniac

Just a quick post to wish all our fantastic Customers and Friends a very Merry Christmas. We couldn’t work out which virtual card to post for you, so we decided to you can have both.

Let us know which one you liked best.

Oh, (or should that be Ho, Ho, Ho?) we hope you get lots of nice new shiny bits for your cars so you can spend the rest of the holidays putting them on. 😀

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from all of us at Mustang Maniac.

Posted in Blog | Tagged Christmas, customers, drink, friends, gadget, Mustang, Mustang Maniac | 8 Comments

Almost Here…

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Mustang Maniac

This is our last full week before Christmas and looking forward to a few days well earned rest. We have some more puppy pictures which are back by popular demand (thanks for the emails). We say goodbye to the Acapulco Coupe, Paul the Paints Mach1 gets a strip down and we finish with a poem from a close friend and loyal customer Gary.

Lime Mach1

The car has some issues that we knew about and wanted to investigate a little more. We started to cut the top part of the cowl away to get a good look at the rust problem that we could see daylight through. The top part of the cowl would need to be replaced as it had gone thin and peppered with holes.

The removed top part showed our worst expectations. The lower cowl had gone rotten beyond economical repair. The top and bottom parts of the cowl have been ordered and coming in shortly. Although the parts are on their way, they are not cheap unfortunately. The simple reason is these cars are not quite at the restoration stage of the 64 – 69 models. The parts are being made now and should get cheaper over the coming years. We had to drill out the old weld points from the rest of the bodywork as normal for this type of job. The left side of the cowl didn’t look much better but could have been repaired if we wanted to.

left side

Just for now we have stopped work on her untill all the parts in place. The other parts of the engine bay have a few issues and on investigation she has had a minor shunt. The top part of the frame is kinked a little and the an inner panel rippled along with a little rusty bit. Nothing that can’t be sorted we have seen much, much worse and this will be a great looker once she is done.

Acapulco Coupe

The car has been passed as road worthy via the UK’s mandatory MOT certificate. It’s always a big day when that bit of paper proves your work is at a high enough standard to be on the road. Mart was down with us for the day so he could ride home with her. Adam managed to get the trusty covered LAR Traffic Services lorry so that she could be taken back to her home. After four years of work and few of those years temporarily at our yard she arrived home with Adam at the wheel as he drove her into Mart’s garage for the first time. It was a nice moment to see a grown man with a particularly huge silly grin. Merry Christmas Mart.

The KR

Adam’s KR was not to be left out, the back of the car was always neat and tidy, but Adam wanted it stepped up a notch. So carpets and boards were fitted to the trunk and she now looks totally different. A little more mellow if you can use that word with this beast of a car.

’67 Fastback

This car was in for some work on the engine. The engine has had some modifications which resulted in there being no oil dipstick. So we had to unpick a little of that work and replace water pumps, belts and add that critical oil dipstick back in place. The owner was pleased with out work and being as it was that time of year decided that he would treat himself to a few more little Christmas prezzies while he was at it. First up was the hood catches which always makes the car look very different. The part number for these catches is S1MS-16892 and can be found on our WebShop click here. Next up was the front spoiler with a part number of C7zz-63001 which again can be found at our WebShop click here. Both are the top quality Scott Drake parts we stock. The difference is an instant hit with this owner. Merry Christmas to you too.

The Puppies

Back by popular demand should we say, we have more of the puppies. It was a very sad time a couple of weeks ago that we had to say a final farewell to Paddy the father of these beautiful pups. He was suddenly taken ill and the incredibly difficult decision to let him go was taken. But, his pups and memory lives on, and as so one of the boys will be called PJ (Paddy Junior). The other pups we will be keeping are called Daisy and Enos.

Ellie the mum with pups

Meet Daisy

We thought we would let you know that we have had a couple of requests for some “Yogi Fan Club” pics to be put on the blog, shall we or not? It would mean that we may have to wake him from hibernation in his cave for the pics!

Yogi Fact:

Did you know that Yogi can smell Jaffa Cakes from about fifty feet away, that just happens to be about the same distance of his ~~workshop~~, sorry, cave to the Boy’s Club!

To finish:

To round of this post just before Christmas, what better way than a brilliant little Christmas Mustang Maniac poem. This was written for us by our very loyal customer and great friend Gary W. We have never had a little ditty composed for us before, so this is a first on our little ol’ blog. Thank you very much Gary, and Merry Christmas to you too. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves; well we didn’t, but you know what we mean.

It’s now time for Christmas and the happiness this time brings
For the lucky Mustang owner, some new chrome, trim and things
Finally at Mustang Maniac comes peace and quiet and calm
Though plans of all the next projects still add to the charm

For Adam and all of the gang and all the dogs as well
It’s ‘put your feet up’ time now with a cheeky drink or two as well
As during this busy year they have brought lots tears of joy
To lots and lots of customers who have an old Mustang as a toy

They fix them up, they paint them and make them all look smart
They stock all the big bits, the oily bits and all the small parts
The love and care and they worry, keeping Mustangs in their prime
And keep their many loyal customers very happy all of the time

So given the extremely busy 2015 that they’ve all had
To put their feet up for a few days really won’t make them too sad
But Adam and all of the gang will be back soon all fit and well
So “Happy Christmas” Mustang Maniac followers have a great “Noel”!

Copyright – Gary W.

Posted in Blog, Customers' Cars, News, Our Cars, Webshop | Tagged Acapulco coupe, Christmas, fastback, KR GT500, Mach1, MOT, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, rust, Scott Drake | 7 Comments

The Spirit of Christmas

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Mustang Maniac

This week we thought we better make an effort to get some Christmas decorations up. No sooner had we finished putting up the single piece of tinsel, (part of Adam’s Enos range,) that we had to put the tree up as well. Throughout the week we have had customers bringing us in gifts. There seems to be a theme here of spirits and (Jaffa) cakes. Those of you that spotted the tree lights will notice that Adam has really pushed the boat out on this one. These are LED stick on strip lights that they use on some of the LAR trucks for safety. Yes he has been sitting there with the remote driving people nuts with the various colour schemes and flashing sequencies. You gotta hand it to him – it works well and they don’t get hot.

Thanks to all of you that have brought us in all the goodies, we appreciate it.

Cars:

We have shown over a few posts the 1964 1/2 coupe that was involved in an accident. We have sorted the panel work out and the bodywork to a point where it can be sent of to Paul “The Paint” to work his magic. We have a large selection here to show you the process. The car arrived and the blocking work started to even out the small imperfections on the car’s metal work.

The paint prep work undertaken on the panels.

The final fitting up of the panels and masking up.

Then the undercoat and top coats are applied.

The engine bay was also sprayed the classic satin black.

Then the prep to put the car back to together again. (one of our favourite pictures of the bunch here).

A few days later arrival at our workshops where we can start to put her back together again.

Now in her temporary home while she awaits some TLC. (Tender Loving Care).

Ford Facts:

We have had some very interesting feedback from the “Ford stories” that we have been running on and of for a while and we intend to make a little “Ford Fact” article soon about it all. but for now here is a little more.

“Money Talks”

By 1912, Ford Motor Company was producing small, cheap cars that sold in their thousands. Henry Ford wanted to develop the UK market and arranged a trip to England with Clara to meet with the Perry family – a wealthy family with motor interests (the Perry Group still owns Ford dealerships to this day). On arrival by steamship, the Fords were met by the Perrys in a new Rolls Royce and were shown key sites in England. They arranged locations for new manufacturing plants (Manchester, Cork etc) and sites for a showroom in London. Once business was concluded, the Perrys arranged for the Fords to meet the Royal family and a number of the gentry around the UK. During a short stay at Warwick Castle as guests of the Earl of Warwick, Clara was impressed with a large and ancient Chinese punch bowl on a table in the great hall of Warwick Castle. Commenting to Henry that if they saw another bowl like that while they were in the UK, she would like to buy it. “Why not have that exact bowl?” asked Henry. “Because not everything is for sale…and that has been in this family’s history for generations….it is a long time heirloom of the Warwick family!” responded Clara. Henry had his agent contact the Earl and ask if the bowl was for sale…..predictably, ‘no’ was the response. Henry had his agent continue to suggest a prices that might be acceptable. The Earl refused a significant number of times until the price Henry eventually offered (many thousands of pounds) saw the bowl sold to Henry Ford. Henry remained convinced all his life that everything had a price. That bowl remained one of Clara Ford’s most treasured possessions. It seems that in some cases money does talk!

Last, but not least:

To finish we have had some diaries made up for us. These have our logo on the front and the handy note jotter on the inside with some nice weekly planning pages. Spend over £50 with us in the WebShop and we will add one to your order free of charge. They are going very quickly, real quick – like thirty over the weekend alone, stocks will run out very soon.

The WebShop will be open as much as we can over Christmas, we have been seriously busy so far and can’t always get to the phones. remember, you don’t need to call us to order your parts now.

Posted in Articles, Parts, Repairs, Webshop | Tagged Christmas, diary, Ford, Ford Facts, Henry Ford, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, paint, spirits, WebShop | 2 Comments

Yogi Goes Mach1

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Mustang Maniac

The last post from last week we had lots of great feedback regarding the new puppies. This week we are back to cars and no more puppies! I think there will be a trouble if we don’t post more cute pics somehow, so there will be some at the bottom of the post.

Anyway, we have been working on the latest car to the team, this time it’s our very own Paul “The Paint” who has treated himself to a new car. A rather nice ’72 Mach1. Paul has been driving it around for a few weeks and is well pleased with the daily driver as it feels very good on brakes, steering and drive. As ever there are a few niggles that will be sorted out a bit later on.

There was a couple of bits of rust that needed looking at such as the floor pans and wheel arches. Yogi and Paul had a conversation about looking at it properly to see what exactly is going on with the chassis and shell.

While Paul was away from the workshop (or cave that Yogi now prowls) for a day or so,

… Yogi does this all this at the speed of sound. We think somebody has been feeding him blue Smarties or something similar with hyper “e- numbers” in it! We would like to point out that he does respond better to Jaffa Cakes, so bear that in mind if you insist on feeding him. (See what we done there? Sorry.)

Seriously though, it all needed to be done, as we suspected there was some hidden spots that will need some treatment. Unfortunately these things can usually only be found when getting to this level of restoration, which means the car will get worse before it gets better. The top part of the fire wall (arrowed) had a big hole in it, and the support plates need replacing that gives the front part of the car its rigidity.

Paul’s reaction was a picture when he saw parts of his previous daily runner now being swept up at the end of the day! But, we did have some good news for Paul. Yogi has started on the floor pans and already welded some of them in place along with part of the rear quarter work. We will be using as much as possible of the original metal work where we can. It does look like the rear light panel will have to come off as well. We know the windscreen is broken, but it was going to need replacing anyway. As we see all to often, it’s what happens when the glass gets brittle with age.

We have spotted something that was a little odd, the prop shaft.

There is a new page added now under the heading “Our Cars” where “Lime ’72 Mach1” can be found, or click here. We will be updating this page on a regular basis, pretty much like Mart’s “Acapulco ’66 Coupe Full Restoration” page under “Customers Cars” or click here to go to that page, as this is a large page give it time to load!

The Puppies:

As promised we have had lots of emails and comments about the new Ellie litter of pups. Lily has taken a shine to the pups in a big way and looks like she wants one! Mother and pups are doing well and starting to show some of their colours now.

Herbie’s:

We would to thank everybody who turned up to Herbie’s for our Christmas meal. It was a great day and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.

Posted in Customers' Cars, News, Our Cars, Photos | Tagged daily driver, floor pans, Mach1, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, Paul the paint, rust, Yogi | 2 Comments

New Arrivals

Posted on November 29, 2015 by Mustang Maniac

This week has been very busy as usual, but this time it’s not just the cars we have been servicing and looking after. If we can take you back a few weeks to when Adam was posting some pics of SEMA 2015. Adam mentioned that he may have bought something, however he promised it wasn’t a car. This week we had a container arrive from the USA sort of car sized. We all thought that it was going to be car shuffle time again to find a home for it. More inspection revealed that we could see the back end of a car with a licence plate! Car, he’s bought another car. As we unloaded the shipment he kept laughing and insisting that he hadn’t bought a car, but we could see the back of a car. We thought he was going nuts at this point. Although we hate to admit it, he was right – he hadn’t bought a car at all – he had bought TWO halves of a car!!! When we unwrapped the crates properly we could see just why he had bought what he had.

We knew that Adam has always wanted a pair of these “sofas” and they are amazing, not to just look at but also to sit on. The wheel arches had been filled in with sheet metal work and these sofas are made using genuine Mustang parts. Here they are on their way to Mustang Maniac, Adam had kept these pics to himself for a while for some reason.

The process to make these sofas really is a work of art with expertise to match.

Apparently Adam did what Adam does best, he made a deal or two at the show to get them back to the UK. The back end has been put into the offices of LAR downstairs next to the fish tank. What with the Harley at the other end of the office it’s becoming a bit of a showroom!

Of course the front end is now located in the new revamped offices of Mustang Maniac upstairs. Both the sofas has the correct fittings for the headlights and indicators, the legs are tuned billet and the sofas are pretty amazing we must say. Adam wants to make the lights work front and back, as well as putting exhaust pipes in the back section. That’s his next little project apparently. 🙂

How much does Adam like these new acquisitions? Well, he took the show plates of Mart’s Acapulco coupe freshly back from the Car Show and screwed them straight onto the sofas.

What do people think of them? Well three of Adam’s five grandchildren have seen them and loved it. In fact everybody who has seen them so far like them.

We did say to Adam; “Go and get some more”. Adam’s response was these ones are not for sale (yet), but if the interest is there he could be “persuaded” to go back to the USA and get some more made and shipped over to the UK. If you want one – speak to Adam, but be advised that these ain’t cheap, in fact you can get a pretty good working second-hand car for what these cost!

The office itself has had a major uplift and it all seemed to coincide with the delivery of the new “furniture”. There are new desk chairs, new desks and matching filing cabinets too. The cabinets are actually storing things that should be in the office, and not sorage for steering wheels, brake parts, bits of suspension or clutches! How long will it stay like that we are not sure, but the office does look pretty darn cool right now we must say.

desk and cabinets

Adam likes the new chairs as you can tell. There is a theme with the new furniture, I wonder if you can guess just what that theme is!

Other News:

Ellie has become a mum and had her puppies on Tuesday evening. The very proud German Shepherd mum produced ten pups in total, but sadly one died very early on while the other arrived. But, Ellie and the remaining nine are all healthy and being spoilt rotten as you can imagine. There is nothing quite like the smell of newly born puppies.

We do have some pics of the work we have been doing on the cars this week. But we thought we would leave it today on a cute photo set. Good choice? What will be main post pic be? The new sofa’s or the puppies? The decision will be made in about ten minutes just before this gets posted! Next week – Cars, and maybe more puppies.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged furniture, German Shepherd, grandchildren, Mustang, Mustang Maniac, puppies, Sema 2015 | 10 Comments

Birmingham NEC Classic Car Show 2015

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Mustang Maniac

Last weekend we took two cars to the Birmingham NEC Classic Car Show 2015, the cars had to be there before mid day on Thursday 12th November to be registered in, then the stands and cars could be arranged within the stands which is part of the “Build Up”. First up we had Ken’s beautiful genuine ’66 GT fastback which is used as a daily driver. This was on the Classic American stand and was up for nomination in the “Classic American Car of the Year”. Featured many times in various magazines and a heat winner at previous events. The second car was the first outing in her completed state, the Acapulco Blue ’66 Coupe, which was going to be on show at the Mustang Owners Club of Great Britain. It was a very early start and the sun hadn’t even bothered to get out of bed! We loaded Ken’s GT on first and then Mart’s. We would like to thank “LAR Traffic Services” who’s two tiered transporter was used to get these treasured cars to the NEC show and back safely.

Closer to the NEC the inevitable traffic jams started, but at least the other drivers got to take photo’s of the car before they even got to the show halls.

The cars were driven to their stands, the GT went to the Classic American stand where she received a great clean up so a special thanks to everybody on that stand who helped out and made her look top of her game.

Mart’s Acapulco ’66 Coupe on the MOCGB stand awaiting her final position with the other cars.

The MOCGB stand being set up and the final car positions. A big thanks to Chris York who does a great job each year to show the Mustangs of to their adoring public:

The best time to get some pictures was before the public got to see the cars as the busy crowds makes it difficult to take some pictures. If you see the high visibility jackets in the pictures that’s the reason why.

So where do we start? There are literally thousands of cars there at the show, so we tried to take unusual photos of the many cars there rather than fill the pages up with the normal photos, but some you just have to take.

A stand with millions of pounds worth of Ferrari’s lined up, many you don’t get to see, let alone all lined up next to each other. 308, F40, F50, Enzo and the new LaFerrari.

Dino

The ever beautiful E-Types & Aston’s

Then the big boys that certainly need no introduction:

Plenty of replicas and cars up for sale:

Plenty of Racing cars from various categories on show and a few famous racers too like Graham Hill’s BRM:

How about some super famous cars; Liberace’s Gold Golfers Coupe and the John Lennon’s Painted Rolls Royce, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”

The Thunderbirds movie car from 2004, not the original FAB1 Rolls – but an incarnation of it, it just doesn’t seem right without the big Rolls Grill does it? But it was based on a modified Ford Thunderbird.

Some restorations projects on the go here

The lull before the storm in just one of the arenas.

Each day the exhibitors are allowed in what time they want early in the morning. A different coloured wrist band for each day of the show is allocated to allow pass in and out of the building. The exhibitors usually find tea or coffee and get out the cleaning materials. Yes, even though the cars were cleaned a few hours ago they were cleaned again. Dust can get on the chrome and make it look tatty believe it or not. Stock is taken out of boxes and laid on the tables with final adjustments to make it look attractive. Announcements are given over the tannoy for the count downs; half hour, fifteen minutes, ten minutes, five minutes upon which the video loops are turned on and music tracks are turned up. With the final announcement “The show is now open” people scramble to take their places finish their drinks and breakfast, trying to make it all look effortless. The first few members of the public filter through, the exhibitors get ready to greet the public hoping that their voices will last the day. If their voices do hold up you can guarantee that the feet may not. What do they exhibitors get out of it if they are not being judged? Nothing, just the thrill of somebody looking and admiring your hard work, that’s it.

The public was let in from Friday onwards and the cars we took to show were very popular. Of course the GT had her crowds all day, and most of the time was difficult to grab a clear photo from each of the cars. But, on Saturday the MOCGB had a special guest Edd China from the car restoration TV show “Wheeler Dealers”. We managed to grab a few shots of him sitting in our contribution to the club stand, Mart’s Coupe. This pulled in large crowds to see a Celeb’s photo being taken with all the members on the club stand in matching blue polo shirts.

On Sunday we had another visitor to the Acapulco Coupe – Tim Shaw from “Car SOS” tv show. Again this pulled in a large crowd waiting to see another Celeb in the car.

Chris managed to grab a conversation with Tim at the MOCGB stand. The last photo here was a great guy who was exhibiting his car, but was also a dead lookalike for Roy Chubby Brown the comedian. He made us laugh by telling us to “clean the f…. car not just look at it” 😀

The three days was a long three days it has to be said standing on your feet. The public were great except for a just one woman who didn’t look like she wanted to be there with her husband. Her long face matched her coat that was thrown over her bag, which was in turn thrown over her shoulder, this allowed the metal zip to go clattering against the cars. All the hours of hard work and devotion can ruined by a few seconds of a selfish attitude. All of the cars in the show regardless of make has taken many hours and years of work and dedication, not to mention the many thousands of £££ or $$$ to complete in pretty much all cases, especially when the cars are at this level. Selfish? Yes, because when she was asked to be carefull – there was no apology, just a shrug and huff and walked off.

She may only see this:

All classic car owners will certainly see this:

Anyway the public were asking some great questions and took genuine interest in the cars spending lots of time with the guys and girls on the stands. It has to be said that some showed a little more interest than others.

Acapulco Coupe’s first days out with her brand new show board:

At the end of the three days the cars were loaded onto the LAR truck again for a trip back to the yard for a safe storage. We just love this photo:

Back at the yard an eerie silence was broken by the bark of the dogs and two Mustangs firing up going back to the covered workshops for a rest.

We hope that gives you a little idea of what goes on behind the scenes of a car show. That’s apart from the endless cleaning and removing finger prints from paint work and glass.

Other News:

We have found some more photo’s while bringing this collection together of when we were in SEMA a few weeks ago. We will have to do a post with more of those pics for you soon.

Posted in Customers' Cars, News, Photos, Travel | Tagged '66 fastback GT, Acapulco coupe, Birmingham NEC, Classic Car Show, Ferrari, John Lennon, LAR Traffic Services, Liberache, Mustang, Mustang Maniac | 6 Comments

SEMA 2015 (Day 4)

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Mustang Maniac

We said we were going to post yesterday the last day of SEMA 2015, but we didn’t get a chance because we spent the night in Las Vegas enjoying the best of the hospitality. So we think we had an excuse as we wanted to sample the culture, as we do each year we are here. So here are the last days photo’s:

We have a Smart car at Mustang Maniac, but ours doesn’t look like this though. We think we might stick it in the suitcase and take it home with us.

We have seen some pretty cool exhaust modifications in our time, but none quite like this:

You want Hemi heads on a Ford block – you got it !

Yeah we have had an email to ask if Adam was working there or not, he says he was?

He says he was networking – this means he tracked down John D’Agostino from D’Agostino Celebrity Kustoms.

This is where we found our potential favourite of the whole show – Elvis’ custom Cadillac. What an incredible car.

We often here the phrase “boys and their toys”, yep we found those too.

Then we found the proper toys. A genuine Shelby Daytona, unfortunately a pocket full of cash wouldn’t by the wheel nuts on this car.

Coming to the end of the last day at the show we moved outside.

Then to celebrate (with what ever reason we could think off) we hit the town. A great night out in a great city.

We done a little shopping today and found a sofa we want in the offices.

All we can say is what fantastic show yet again from SEMA 2015, we are sad to be coming home soon. But not without saying a big, big thank you to all the wonderful people who have taken time out with us over the short time we have been guests here. We love Las Vegas and we love the USA. See you again next year when we will do it all over again.