65 Ford Mustang dashboard trim install

eBay finds collecting on the desk

A little MetAll and elbow grease

We still have holiday company but I was able to sneak out to the garage for a couple hours on the day after Christmas.
I have seen this stainless trim along the lower edge of the dash pad on some early Mustangs but I have not been able to figure out if it was only on Deluxe interior cars or what option package might have included it. I don't see it on a lot of cars.

VW doodlings

Some medical issues have been keeping me out of the garage this week but the VW theme is coming through strong in my doodles.

Buggy Time

Street Rod style

Water Spots on Clear Coat

After we got home from Christmas shopping today I was able to get out to the garage long enough to polish the trunk lid and tulip panel on the 65. A little history on how I got to this point;

All of the glass was removed reinstalled with new seals when the car was painted in March of this year. But when I washed the car, I had a little water coming in around the seal on the rear window. After a couple of no-shows from a local vintage car glass expert, I ordered a new seal and at the end of summer I installed it with dum dum and a tube of 3M 8509. I let it sit overnight and leak tested the next morning with a bucket of water. All good! No leaks.

I had limited time that morning (remember, real life) so I put the car back in the garage without drying it and didn't come back to the car for a month while I did some landscaping projects around the house.
When I did come back I saw big ugly water spots that would not wipe off.

George Barris died Nov. 5, 2015.

The King of the Kustomizers. RIP

I grew up looking at George's work in car magazines. His death is part of the reason I started this blog. I've been thinking since he passed that I needed to do something but I didn't know what.

There are articles all over the web and plenty books about his and brother Sam's cars. Check them out, there's some great stuff to see. I want to reflect a little on the way he touched lives all over the world through his art/craft.

As a kid I would see his ads in the hot rod books selling his "Customizing Made Easy" books. This was during the "Super Van" and "Corvette Summer" era. This is where the seed was planted for me.

I'm sure there were thousands like me who were inspired by his work. Kids who's dreams were influenced by George's passion. People he never met but managed to touch their lives. I didn't grow up to be a famous builder but George was a positive influence on my life, as he was for many others. Just as some kid might be influenced by seeing the car you built or just seeing you working on it in your garage.

Working 40-50 hours a week? Got kids in college? Home repairs to keep up? The hot rodding struggle is real here in the mid-west.

Bought the Mustang 20 years ago as a daily driver. It's been a toy for 18 years.

A friend of mine came in one day with an old Edelbrock F4B intake manifold and offered it to me for the Mustang, This is the manifold I had on my 67 Mustang back in high school so I knew I had to make the change.