Assembly begins...

It's now time to get down to business. The first task was to remove all of the aluminum panels that were shipped with the kit. These were attached to the chassis with a couple of self tapping screws. The next step was to decide what modifications, if any, we were going to make. We decided early on that we wanted to build a car that was useable. We intend to use the car to go on driving trips, so it had to be comfortable and have enough storage to make this possible. The first major modification therefore was going to be to the passenger footbox.

As the kit is a 'one size fits all' it has to accommodate both the 302ci engine from the earlier mustangs, as well as the newer 'modular' engines. These new 4.6 engines are much wider than the old small block engines, and so the footboxes on both sides are small enough so that the modular engine will fit. This doesn't affect us as we're using a 302, so we had some room to play with.

Aisling started off with construction card and mocked out what we wanted the new footbox to look like. She then traced this out onto a sheet of aluminium which we then cut out. Using a 36" desk mounted brake, we were able to create the bends we needed. It was then a simple task of tacking it together with a couple of self tapping screws while we marked out the rivet placements.

We wanted the rivets to be evenly spaced and in a straight line, so we bought a sheet of peg board with the holes spaced at 1 inch centres, and simply cut a strip off this to use as a guide. The panels were then drilled at a spacing of 2 inches and have now been sent off to powdercoat. The other important modification is to the trunk. Trunk space is pretty limited so we're making two alterations - a dropped battery box and 'hidden' storage between the fuel tank and the bottom of the standard trunk.

We've also widened the driver's footbox buy a few inches by putting a couple of extra bends in the side panel. The top and sides of this panel retain the same profile and connect to the chassis in the same place - the only difference is a convex profile instead of a concave one. This should give an extra couple of inches for the driver's right foot and knee, which should help comfort on long journeys.