1971 Mustang Coupe

My car is far from pretty (or finished), but it does run and is drivable most of the time. It's a project I started about 10 years ago, and it and I have grown together ( I was only 16 when I bought it).

The driver's side looks pretty decent, and it looks a lot better since I made the car have a uniform paint color on all of its body panels. The passenger side still has a significant amount of body work that needs to be finished. The driver's side quarter and fender were replaced. The passenger's side fender was replaced, but the quality was really bad. One of my winter projects for this year is to try to fix that hack job and repair some other less visible problems.

It has been converted from a 6 cylinder, 3 speed combo to a 351W, Toploader. Neither of these is perfect, but they work well enough that I can drive the car.

Upgrades that I hope to complete at some point in the future include:
Brake upgrade to the best I can afford at the time, power rack and pinion steering, 9" with disc brakes and Cal-Tracs or a Slide-a-link, those are the major ones that pop into mind right now. This list could go on forever because that is what I love about cars. I'm a modifier, so the process of designing, modifying and testing is almost as much fun as driving the car.

[Blueoval71]

Awesome, good for you! I bought my 71 coupe when I was 18 and did lots to it the first 8 years I had it then parked it nearly 12 years ago to restore it properly. I tooled around with the idea of starting 2 years ago and committed to it 2 weeks ago. Mine has Granada front disc/spindles and a 9" rear end out of a Lincoln Versailles. I believe the 9" from those is shorter than our stock ones because I can put a massively dished rim in the rear now. I have had these on my car since 92 or 93: http://tractionmaster.com/ .They are simple yet extremely effective. they do require welding to the torque box, but if you want the car to grip and hook you may want to beef up the torque boxes anyway. I welded a small steel plate to help dissipate some of the stress from driving HARD. Our cars actually have an excellent steering box. The week link is the rag joint and the power steering pump. I will eventually swap the rag joint to something like this http://www.flamingriver.com/index.php/products/c0005 . I'm glad to see someone else enthusiastic about modding a coupe. Let me know if there is any info I can help you with and keep us updated!

[OLE PONY]

Great story and I bet your glad you've held onto it. Keep it running and on the road as long as you can while your working on it to keep your interest up!

[thendricks]

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the suggestions and enouragement. Since I acquired this car they have grown on me, and it's really great to know there are others out there with similar interests. I'm looking forward to showing off some of my progress and watching and enouraging otthers.