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I followed your build on this and it's a shame so much of your hard work on the chassis goes unseen. Turned out perfect and I like the knock-off wheels.

Perfect stance and I like the wide whites with the cheater slicks. Nice interior. Might think about a radiator support but not always needed.

Great looking paint work and engine detailing.

Big improvement on the front end. For myself I would even go a little further even to the point that the bumper sides would be shortened. The main thing is that you're happy with the way it looks. I like the hood design, this gives it an additional appearance and follows the basic Ford design so it looks the way you would think Ford would have done it. The roof looks perfect as is and a little work on the dash/cowl area should bring it all together.

Great looking build. Looks like it just came from the pages of Street Rodder.

I like the final look with the body color and the HO Stripes and the Red Lines. I remember the local Pontiac dealer who stocked a lot of Firebirds and they all had the new wide tread tires and most of them were the Red Lines.

Great looking Drag Car and the paint is really smooth looking. You mentioned you like to do the wiring on the engine and it shows. Cleanly detailed inside and out. To bad about the shifter thing but that should be changeable.

For the first time back in over 40 years it would seem you haven't lost your touch with this build.

Great looking paint work and I like the flat black cowl induction hood. Just enough chrome trim to accent the body lines. Those wheel lip moldings must have been fun. The wheels and tires are just right along with the stance. Very cleanly finished.

I would remove the minimum amount and see how it looks. This may take several trials but in the end it is usually best to take baby steps when you're making such changes. You can easily remove to much and then you're adding material back on and getting frustrated and can botch up the whole thing. In the picture it looks as if everything is finally glued in place and the deconstruction part can destroy other design features such as the lower spoiler that looks just right now. If you could remove the valance at the attachment point to the body might be the most ideal. The lower spoiler may have to be cut away or just rebuilt again later. Then you could move the valance further into or under the Mustang front end. At this point it's eye ball engineering and you're just moving it around to were it looks right to you. I think you will have the best luck removing material from the back side of the valance and again just baby steps. I would tape it in place and study how it looks from every angle. Only when you're 100 % then you should be safe with gluing everything back together. This front end is a very strong design element and I would try and stay as close as possible to the original design.

Great looking paint work. I had a co-worker years ago who pick up one of these when they were just 12 or 13 year old used cars. It took him over a month to blow up the engine. Turns out he wasn't the street racer he thought he was. He patched it up and sold it. So if someone in Sacrament remembers a Calypso Coral Boss 302 that never seemed to run right you might have had an unbalanced cast crank.

Very nice shade of blue for this.

This is the type of build you need to take your time looking at all the details here to fully appreciate what all has been done. While any shade of green is not what I would first think of as you look at the finish it really works for this. Not a fan of the Mopar tail stripes, but again this is done in a fashion you can't think of it being done any other way. The engine room looks a little busy at first, but everything is there and in its place. Correct mounting brackets and wire leads. The interior is done in the same manor. and the Chassis is all business also.

Another one of your outstanding Ford builds. These were popular color combinations at that time. This makes one wonder how buyers today would react to such colors on todays automobiles ?

I like the very clean way in which this was assembled. It's hard not to have a small flaw somewhere on a build of this overall size. I don't see any.

Just when you think this build could not possibly get and more detailed you get a wild hair and make a fuel pump.

I can see why you would want to build a model of the Kit Bashed Mustang. I also like the overall appearance. One thing that stands out to my eye has to do with the front valance area that starts out as a Shelby type valance. In the original application this would set much closer under the grill and no bumper. The set up you have now has it sitting further way from the body and that would still look good, but when you add in the bumper it starts to really get out there. Think of it as the problem with the '56 Chevrolet kits where the front splash pan and bumper stick out like a cow catcher on an old train. In the drawing it looks like the lower valance has been drawn in much tighter to the body and in doing so the addition of the bumper doesn't standout so much. On the hood I would stay with what ever Ford styling Q's fit. The Mustang had an R model a few years ago that may be something to consider. Either way I look forward to watching your build.

I like the blue you picked for the body. The '63 Impala interior?

That's a great color, they even used it in the box art.

Great way to combine the two kits.

While I'm more of the brighter Red fan the Maroon color looks good also. I would also try to set the stance more like the red car also.

Often the wheel centers were white and the outer part of the wheel would be painted the body color.

You are correct. I went back and checked the kit I have, I know there are others but this one is at hand, and it's the AMT #38277 the Street Custom issue. This is a hatchback and it just never occurred to me that this all started out for an MPC kit. So many people with good experiences to share you can easily lose your way sometimes.

Overall the finish looks nice and smooth.

To add my two cents worth of information on the 1:1 car. I started working at the local Chevrolet dealer in early 1974. I had moved to the central coast of California and needed to replace my beloved '67 El Camino. I got a new short step box pick-up with the 454 as that was the only way I could get on at the time and I didn't care for the new El Caminos. As a bonus the dealer offered my a job as a salesman and Good Year Tire and Rubber Company had pretty well ***** me off anyway. While I liked trucks and did well selling them the car lines kind of left me cold. I also owned a '72 Nova SS that I got new with the 350 and 4 speed. The automotive manufactures were scrambling to try and figure out all the new government safety and smog standards and they were extensive to say the least. You couldn't even start a car without first fastening your seat belt. Overall not a bad idea in daily service, but now move almost a hundred cars around the lot or even do a sales presentation with that feature. Smog and fuel economy restrictions were the biggest problems. To get the smog reading you wanted they retarded the spark of where you would check to see if the emergency brake as on, and when you turned off the engine they would "diesel" or just keep chugging and spiting with a final gasp that would make you think the engine just died. All of this did nothing to help gas mileage or performance. We used to joke that if you could sell the new '74's you could sell anything. A very big change came about with the '75 models and the Catalytic converters. You would really have needed to be there to realize the dramatic difference in performance in both gas mileage and performance. In late '74 we got our first '75 models and I remember we salesman would take turns driving this basic Nova that was the first to arrive. The styling was all new and it did look nice. In California if you wanted a V8 it was a Quadra Jet 350 and this was our test guinea pig. The first group of salesmen came back after a couple of mile run up the 101, and got out and they couldn't stop raving about how well it ran. I way the resident hot rodder so a couple guys piled in with me driving. Lets just say we saw over 100 MPH and far faster than anything we had been selling. In the two days it was on the ground it got driven and beat upon repeatedly for at least 300 miles until two retired school teachers came in and bought it, I'm not kidding. Now for the kit, remember why were here ? The kit is actually a good one and it represents the way kits were done at the time. I never cared for the solid chrome head lights, but that is fixable. I hear many po po the body proportions especially the rear side window's. What you need to remember is that this is a kit of a Hatchback model Nova and that's pretty much how they were shaped in that application. The rear window and the Truck lid were all one part and lifted on a hinge in the roof above the opening. This is a large body section to be sure and it is heavy. They used struts to hold it open and the rear seat could fold down. I'd do a little research on the body style and build it . This is a great kit of a car that started the move away from "the dark ages" of the auto world.