I'm not a huge fan of Shelby's. But it turns out the only year I like is the '68. Even before I knew my
Mustangs and they all look different with a mish mash of user customs and factory models, I remember
seeing a '67 Shelby front end and thinking how aggressive and cool it looked. My previous iteration as you
saw above used late model Shelby headlights in a unique way and while I appreciated the aerodynamics and
modern tech, as I said I'm going in a much different direction now. One example of this is I know
have to leave some front tire exposed by teh in curve of the front end which is horribly aerodynamically but
essential to pulling off the vintage look.

Also i was just simply blown away by this picture and have it on my wall as my "rendering". I don't know, I"ve
always loved coupes (convertivble obviously here) and I just think this looks so tough and so '60's

shelbymustang.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...lbymustang.jpg

Just imagine that car 7" lower and 4" wider ! and Acapulco Blue instead of green. I've even though about getting
a vinyl top even though i've always thought they were hideous until now. But on a muscle car they are so 60's !

I'll probably just paint the top matte black along with the top surfaces or something. Ring Bros did this and
it just so totally hides the width.

Anyway I got shelby headlights from NPD and built my own nose piecees using my new Harbor Freight english
wheel. These came out nice too, the "curvature" on myh nose piece matches the original fiberglass piece perfectly.


shelbynosebuild1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...nosebuild1.jpg

You'll notice the early mustang valence is several inches above teh ground place. Most "racy" builds fill this
space with an air dam or one of those cow catcher style front pieces. I did not like either of these solutions,
so I custom built a lower valnce from aluminum. Now I have obviously shaped a lot of metal but its all been
"rolled", or bent or manipulated in straightforward ways. I haven't done a lot of shot bag work but I finally
picked up an English wheel and so this was my first "compound curve" metal shaping but I was very happy with
the way it came out. You may notice a little wiggle in the upper "bar" of the valence but this is okay
as it will be covered by a bumper (vintage !). I will continue to run a splitter tray underneath the valence
but it matches the ground place exactly. I tried to cover as much front tire as I could but like I said
I had to curve it in to make it look factory.

valencebuild3.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...encebuild3.jpg
valencebuild2.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...encebuild2.jpg

finishednose.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...nishednose.jpg

So that's where I'm at now, I'm getting ready to send th front fenders to the sandblaster,but I'm messing
around with some louver vents in the tops of the fenders (right above the turbos). They would match the style
of the hood vents on the '68 Shelby hood, so they're not totally out of line, but they would take me a step back
to "race car" rather than fool your eye performance vintage muscle. But they would be very functional, the heat
off the turbos will almost blister the paint otherwise I'm afraid. Also, the hood will be louver vented
(think Mach '69 style) so its not like I'm gonna look too pedestrian. This is another issue, not sure
how to use the '68 shelby hood with its big aggressive nostriles and also implenment a cowl rise and
big radiator vents out the top. it might be too much. Can't decide whether to be sane and buy a nice quality
FG hood and widen or build one from scratch out of aluminum. Lots of work either way.

looking great preston.

MOAR Preston flare porn!

Love the new direction. Great job on the fab work.

Dang man! 180 degree turn from previous!

But I gotta say the new look is a 1000 times better! The previous flares just never flowed with the car well enough. You could always see a stock 67 sitting in a ring of flares. (That's probably also because I DD a 67 coupe!)

I'm pumped for you and excited to see this move along! Keep us posted!

Agreed, great body mods. Looks cool.

Diggin the new design, flows really well. I'm sure you saw the Ring Brothers car (2+2) where they added the material 2" on each side hence the name. That car travelled to Vegas on top of my car in the stacker trailer, I couldn't help standing back and looking at there's and mine over and over to see two different directions to achieve the same tire coverage goals.

I think you have kind of split the difference between the two, and think it looks really good. It is hard to believe how hard it is cover that much tire and have it come out looking good. And inch here and a half an inch there can make or break the look of the car. Sooner or later I've found, you have to just say I'm done. I could keep tweeking my stuff forever, and 99% of the changes nobody notices but me. You noticed how many new Mustang builds there are?

I'm with Ron on the new direction that you've taken. It looks much integrated, which I'm a fan of.

It is fun watching everyone get creative with Mustangs, with different approaches and designs. I don't know why but there seem to be more people chopping up Mustang fenders than Camaro fenders.

'cause people with Mustangs are just kooler......

Or maybe Mustangs are just narrower.


BTW I went back and read my last post and just wanted to say that I generally consider myself an erudite wielder of the written word. But these posts are a stream of consciousness dump complete with voluminous typos. I wouldn't want you guys to think I'm some kind of troglodyte who builds muscle cars in a carport and can't express the Queen's English properly.