I get a lot of great stuff from you readers in my inbox; pictures, scans and tidbits of information. I really try to get to it all but sometimes things fall through the cracks. One such thing is an overdue update to the index of 1992 Feature car related magazine articles.

If you’ve checked it out you know that I try to track articles on the 1992 feature cars on my “Literature” page. I also have a corresponding page for 1993. You can link directly to it to see the result of this update but here is a summary to make it easier to sort through:

• added February 1993 issue of Mustang Illustrated. Thanks to cobra2top for the scans.
• added September 1998 issue of Mustang Illustrated. Thanks to cobra2top for the scans.
• added 2004 Mustang Milestones from Mustang & Ford Trader. Thanks to rare_92 for the scan.

One thing that stands out from these articles (and I have probably mentioned and/or discussed this before) is the perceived appeal to the ladies of our beloved feature cars. Not that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, I think it is a good thing. The opposite would not be as nice. I have a friend whose late father owned a 1963 Corvette. He told her that nothing attracted the attention of older men like a 1963 Corvette. Obviously, interested in the car but men nonetheless.

Mustang Illustrated seems to have pushed the feminine angle pretty hard through both indirect and direct references. It’s humorous to read through it today. In case you don’t want to link over and sort through the articles, I’ll leave you with this little gem:

Oh yeah, for extra credit and fun, count the errors in the paragraph. Not big on editing and fact checking that Mustangs Illustrated.

I’m always on the lookout for fox bodies. Sitings are getting fewer and farther between. Some of them make me circle back and take a closer look. This is about one of those cars.

Recently, we were looking for a different place to have dinner and I remembered a restaurant I saw in a city which I occasionally go to for work. Since we were in the area, we decided to check it out. It turned out that the given restaurant was out of business but next door at the police station I spotted this little beauty.

I am almost entirely certain that this is the same car I saw at a car show at Mustangs Unlimited sometime in the late 90’s. The story I remember hearing then was that it was confiscated from a drug dealer and turned into the D.A.R.E. Mustang. While not a SSP Mustang LX, this GT is still pretty cool in traditional police black and white along with its white top and chrome ponies.

Today, it sits underneath the highway and like all the cars around it is covered with a considerable layer of dust. I’m glad to see that they still have it and I hope to see it out on the road again someday.

Recently, one of my favorite web sites has become Jalopnik.com. I find it an entertaining coverage of cars in general and a good way to unwind at the end of the day. An added bonus is that once in a while a story will include a fox body Mustang. Today, that’s not the case but it does link to a pretty cool video of a tour of Ford’s SVT Headquarters.

Jamal Hameedi takes Garage419 on a tour of the SVT headquarters in Dearborn Michigan. We take a look at Cobra R’s over the years, the GT500KR, a hanging Ford GT as well as an all carbon fiber Ford GT and of course all the engines casually laying around the facility.

The tour includes a 2000 Cobra R. I have seen several of these locally and have known they are rare but I guess I never realized just how luckily I have been to see them regularly. The guy from Garage419 stated that he had never seen one! Last year I saw four at a relatively small (150 car) Mustang show at Mustangs Unlimited.

So, if you’re a Ford person (which I think many of you are) I thought you would probably enjoy this video if you have not yet seen it.

Full Carbon Fiber Ford GT? Ford SVT Headquarters Tour - Garage419

Some time ago, a discussion on personalized plates didn’t quite get off the ground in the forums. Personally, I wanted a personalized plate immediately after I got my feature car. Although, I was a little hesitant to get something too specific to my car. As unlikely as it seems at this point in time I was afraid of getting something like “93 TWF” where later it just wouldn’t work on another car (another car?). For example, at my workplace around the time I was considering this there was a Subaru Outback with a plate “RONS Z”. Every time I saw it I couldn’t help but think that Ron’s previous car must have been a Nissan.

I struggled and struggled until one day I was meeting with my boss and she concluded our pep talk by saying “giddy up”. And, that was it! I found a variation of that available in my state and the rest is history. I also like that saying because my favorite show of all time is Seinfeld and the character Kramer on the show would occasionally use that saying.

What started this whole stream of thought was a 7-up car I just spotted on ebay. The plate is “MY 401K”.

Not that the car is not a good investment but that’s one of funniest and most original I have seen in a while.

UPDATE: A thread on personalized plates has started in the forums.

I received a registration for a 1993 triple white Mustang earlier this month from an email address in the Netherlands. It listed values for State as “other” as well as Country of “other.” I thought it was odd but I have received forms filled out like this in the past from owners who were working or serving overseas while their feature cars remained here in the States. But, my curiosity made me ask the owner to clarify the .nl address and the location of the car.I thought the response was interesting enough to share:

The Mustang is located in The Netherlands, Europe. “nl” stands for NederLand.

The Mustang is really a mess. It is wrecked and it has no engine. This is the third project for me and my wife. The first was a ’79 Mustang V8 Hatchback, the second a ’66 Mustang V8 Convertible. Now we are driving the ’66 Mustang (only in the summer) and a ’83 Mustang V6 Convertible (daily driver).

When we were for the first time in America, we saw these white and yellow Mustangs all over the States at the Ford dealers. We were driving on Route 66. In Tulsa at a Ford Dealership we almost bought a white Mustang. We had to pay, I think it was about $15,000.- off the lot. But it was too expensive to take it home to Europe.

The idea was to look for a white Mustang next year at the 45th Anniversary of the Mustang at the MCA-event. But I found one just a couple of miles from our home.

There are two photos attached with this e-mail.
We want to get the Mustang ready in two or three years.

The pictures provided an idea of the work ahead.

I can’t even imagine the challenges ahead for this project. It’s hard enough to find good parts in the country where these were made. I hope to keep in touch with this owner and wish him well and hope for his success.

Inspired?

So if the preceding details about a restoration beginning in the Netherlands leave you inspired to do your own restoration the opportunity that follows might be for you.

In the last couple of days I have been corresponding with Glynn. He had an incident with his triple white that left it damaged (but repairable) but he is not personally in a position to bring it back to its former glory.

I have posted the details and more photos on the for sale page.

My hope is that someone will find this a worthy project to take on. It would be a shame to lose another one of our triple whites.

UPDATE: Glynn has decided to restore the car. In his words:

After much, much consideration, we have decided to reinvest our time and money into fixing our car.  We just could not part with her.  She was a beauty and will be again.

A coworker pointed me to a recent New York Times article on low-cost collectible cars. In the article and related slide show two Mustangs are included: SVOs and Mustangs from the 1990’s. It’s right up our alley as our cars also fit nicely into this niche.

N.Y. Times: No Mortgage Needed for These Beauties

Overall, it was a great show and the weather was unbelievably hot but no rain. We had a mix of those who had told me they were joining us and a couple that we added to our group at the event. The attendees were as follows:

Tim H. (from PA) - Fri, Sat, Sun - 1993 Vibrant White
Bob H. (from PA) - Fri, Sat, Sun - 1990 Emerald Green
Nick P. (from NY) - Fri, Sat - 1990 Emerald Green
Pete V. (from MA) - Sat - 1993 Vibrant White
Ken B. (from NJ) - Sat, Sun - 1992 Vibrant Red
Clint P. (from IL) - Sat - 1993 Vibrant White
Luis G. (from MD) - Sat - 1992 Vibrant Red

Here’s the day-by-day summary:

Read the rest of this entry »

It sure came fast and as usual I am rushing to the end in order to get ready.

I attended a local show over the past weekend and there was some white dandelion-type stuff floating through the air all day. It made my semi clean interior a mess. I should have kept the windows closed. I spent most of tonight getting my car ready including some much needed interior cleaning. It still has a way to go.

My plan is to arrive there on Thursday either late in the afternoon or early in the evening.

I hope that anyone who is on the fence about going will seriously consider it. I look forward to meeting many of you there.

This year one of the Carlisle policies for having a club tent requires having a banner. Not a bid deal but the problem has been getting the inspiration for a design. I want to do something different but also not too specific as my plan is to hang it in my garage after the show and to possibly reuse it in the future for other events. My inspiration thus far has led me to this:

At this small size some of the refinements that are still required are not noticeable. The final print size is going to be 42″w x 28″h.

You may have noticed that the font I use for the twf.com logo at the top of every page is derived from the font used for “Mustang” in the fox body era. I had originally done the font a long time ago in software I no longer have a license to and thus cannot access the source file in its native format. This time around I needed it to scale larger (each character will print at about 4″ x 2″) so I really needed that source. Unfortunately, I had to use my current graphics software and recreate the font from scratch!

The banner uses the same green as this site which has sort of become the “classic” color for the site and all things related to it. The addition of red and yellow bands around the ring join the white and green to represent (roughly) the colors of all of the feature cars. The circular logo was inspired by a gift given to me by a friend just this week. The gift was given for my garage and is a Texaco thermometer. It uses a classic round logo with the star on the inside. Writing is present around the ring.

My green background seemed too plain so I was browsing looking for banner ideas and found a discussion on using a tire tread as a photoshop brush. One recommendation to someone looking for such a brush was to create their own. I thought, “I could do that.” And, I did. I used the same tread pattern as is on my current set of tires. The tracks overlay the rings but not the white font.

I have more tweaking to do but I’m getting closer. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and how I might improve it.

In mid-2006 I did a geographical analysis of where the cars in my registry were located. It consisted of superimposing the counts per state over a map of the U.S. I used increasing size fonts to further emphasize. It was nice but it was a pain in the neck and I have never issued an update.

Last week I discovered Google charts while browsing a favorite site of mine which was showing their customers for the current day by state using a map through the Google charting service. I thought, “wouldn’t this be great for my registry.” So, I spent time over the last few days converting most of my tabular registry data into graphical form.

As an example, here are registrations of 1993 feature cars by state as of May 4, 2008 (the lighter the green the more cars).

I myself am a very visual person so I really get into this and find more value from it than tabular data. Although, not all statistics I am collecting made good charts. All of the raw numbers are still included either separate from the charts or included within the charts.

Currently, they do not do the Canadian provinces on maps. I could only do a world map with Canada and USA each as a whole. I thought this had limited value so I just stuck to the U.S. and hope not to offend our friends up north. If Google does start to offer more detail for Canada I will be sure to add it.

Be sure to check out my updated 1992 and 1993 registry stats in order to see the full makeover.