[agardonia]

Ok, the final evaluations are being made this Saturday. The car is going up to my personal body shop guy and he's going to look at it, and give me an estimate. I also found out that if I buy the paint directly myself, it saves me a lot of money, because most body shops mark it up (learn something new everyday). I have finally decided on the paint scheme.

The ground effects all the way around will be painted a Ford Opal Opalmistic Metallic White Tri-Coat with flex added into the paint to keep the ground effects from cracking, this will also include the racing stripes to go on the Cervini Ram Air Mach 1 Hood that I will be putting on it. The rest of the body will be going a BM575 <----- paintcode) DuPont Desaturated Navy Blue Pearl Metallic.

I have seen so many mustangs, but have yet to see one with this paint scheme. I get tired of seeing red and silver, red and white, blue and white, green, yellow, black, or all blue. Which is why I wanted to do these colors, because it's unique and it will definitely stand out, and everyone will say, hey He did something new.

Saturday is also the day I take it up to the Custom Interior Shop. I am really torn up on the choice of color, but I know the material I definitely want to use. Instead of true leather (which will fade, crack, and wear out faster in the sunlight) I am going to go with alternative leather, looks and feels the same, but holds up a whole lot better and lasts longer too. My problem is that I can't decide on a white interior, a grey interior, or a black interior. I want the white, but it's so hard to keep clean, but looks awesome. The grey isn't too bad, but you can still see stains on the carpet if you spill something. The black is ok and you can't see as many stains, but it gets really hot in the summer time. This is my main dilemma.

Today while working (I am a professional delivery driver) I stopped at a tire and wheel shop and found the rims I want to use. I decided to go with Weld Racing Draglite 191 XP Series 17x8 rims (are these Windows XP compatible? just kidding), mounted on Bridgestone Fusion ZR 225/55/R17 performance tires. I have a buddy who can get them cheaper than the $322 per rim that they are priced at, and also cheaper than the $150 price per tire. So that definitely works out for me there.

As far as when all this happens, it wont be until after my bills get paid off. I'm expecting an insurance settlement any day now from a nasty car wreck I was in this past summer. That will go to pay most or all of my bills off, depending on the settlement amount. Once that is done, I will have only $800 per month in bills to pay, and $1600 per month to play with, cause I make damn good money for not having a college education. Then on top of that I will be getting a pretty hefty tax return this year, and that will go towards getting the Mustang done. So at least I have a plan, and now it's just putting it into action and making it happen.

Just to let you know, this 308 and T-5 that I will be getting here pretty soon, have only 2000 miles on them a piece, and this motor is pretty bad a**, probably between 350 and 425 hp. Also a buddy of mine has a 302 McLaren XXX block for sale for $150, which is in superb condition, has no (zero) wear inside the piston bores, and it's bored .030 over, no cracks, and is very clean. This will be a perfect project motor for me that way I can build my real racing motor. I'm going to stroke this one to a 347, and supercharge it. I'm gonna try to get at least 500 hp out of this bad boy. Well that's all for now. Let me know what you all think. This should keep me busy for quite some time.

Andrew