We take a look at an All American Classic Car in our stock our 1978 Ford Mustang…
We’re always on the scout for stock and new and interesting classic cars to bring in work on and ultimately look to rehome. In typical fashion scouring adverts on social media sites, this Ford Mustang popped up. Over the years we have bought and sold loads of Mach 1’s and we’ve also hand a lot of joy with the S197 models too which are a personal favourite as of this point we hadn’t gotten too involved in the fox body version or the Mk2 versions. As much as anything Ford started to bring the overall size down for a shorter sleeker looking car and if you are a fan of things like the Capri, even non-American car enthusiasts can see the charm in them. Anyway a few calls, text, messages and so on the car was bought. We’re used to facing all kinds of mechanical and structural challenges here so we weren’t too worried about what it was actually like. None the less, that week a truck went in, scooped it up and it was on it’s way into us.
Overall the car was structurally sound it had a load of welding and panel repair done. The car was prepped on the body to look ratty and quickly it became known as the Rat-Stang with 
customers on site referencing the Mad Max films when they saw. The Ratty patina and touches like the fake barbed wire on the grille. All of it made for something that looked different. The interior also was pretty good all round, with the original dash trims and door cards but bucket seats added for a more modern edge. What instantly struck with everything cosmetic was the face that any future owner could potentially keep this rat-rod look or use the car as a good starting point for restoration back to original.
When it came to suspension, some of this had been poorly fitted and was coming apart so new brackets needed to be welded and new bolts to bring everything into a safe running order. Mechanically it was ok but with so much work done plus the addition of aftermarket ignition and carburettor equipment this just need some significant setting up to run better. We see this quite a bit with cars that have had modification after modification and changed hands. Sometimes its about going back to basic and rebuilding. Of course as part of this we carry out one of full classic car servicing packages which includes all the filters, plugs leads and so on.
