Hakan wrote:

Since my '67 Mustang coupe almost got completely destroyed in fire accident in 2004 the whole effort to get the car back on the road has been called "The Phoenix Project", IIRC MustangSteve came up with the name.

The complete story begins at the Ford Metuchen factory in New Jersey where the car originally was made as a candyapple red, black interior coupe with a six cylinder engine and a three speed manual transmission. It was then exported and sold as a new car in Sweden. I know very little about the car's life here in Sweden other than it's been in the Norrtälje area for quite some time before I bought it in 2000.

Somewhere along the line the six cylinder engine had been swapped for a 289 V8 and a C4 auto trans together with front disc brakes from a 1968 Ford Falcon and a N-case 9 inch rear end from a 1972 Ford Mustang. Also a lot of rust repairs and bodywork had been made to the car, unfortunately not of very high quality. A paint job that probably was considered "groovy" back in the seventies was on the car when I bought it.

The last owner before me had taken the car back out on the street and through the inspection after it had been resting for a pretty long while, probably several years. There was a lot of work still left to do on the car, obviously depending on to what status you wanted to build it, but that just suited me fine when I bought the car as a running project in July 2000.

My initial plan was to work on the car during the long Swedish winters and enjoy it during the summers trying to avoid a larger project in the small garage I had back then. The goal was pretty much to just restore the car as it was with the upgrade parts that was already on it. This plan worked fine for the first two seasons, but then things got a little carried away when I started too many projects on the car in the fall of 2002.

In June 2004 I had the car pretty much back together to be able to drive it as we were about to move to another town. But then disaster struck, I had a welding accident, the car's backseat took fire and I wasn't even in the garage when it happened. Almost the whole car and most of my garage equipment got destroyed from the fire and from what was done to put the fire out.

The insurance company was very helpful after the fire, gave me a good deal and after we moved I took the car completely apart and started a complete restoration with a a lot of modifications. I am on the ninth year of the restomod work now, but during this period I've of course done a lot of other things as life have a tendency of getting in the way of the hobby.

Back when I had just bought the car in 2000 we had just moved from the town where I grew up and had all my car buddies, when I turned to the internet instead there were no Swedish forums about the Mustang at that time and I just ran into this place and have stayed here ever since.

July 2000:



July 2001:



2002, EFI converted thanks to Steve Ainsworth aka "ultrastang":



July 2004, after the fire:









March 2013, closing in on getting the exterior painted:



Håkan

 Hakan,I noticed in your post your car was built in Metuchen nj, I lived in Metuchen from 70-73...the Ford factory is long gone now...my 70 Mach 1 was also built in Metuchen...it was just painted last year only a couple of miles away from  the Ford plant where it was originally painted...crazy....jj

Hi Robby,
You need a photobucket account or something similar to host your pictures. I have a Photobucket app on my I phone. Phone pics uploaded to Photobucket. "Share" the pic from photobucket app, then "copy" for I phone 5, brings up copy links, choose the "IMG" link. Paste this in your post on the Awesome MustangSteve Forum. I did a test pic in the tech section to verify.

In 1978. I was 18. It was an ac, ps, auto 289 2v, with vinyl roof. Little by little I changed it to a three speed, I asked for a '66 hipo 289 cam. They called it a mid range cam.  Autolite 4v, Edelbrock torker 289 manifold and headers. No ac, no ps. It was leaking oil all over the place. So I put in new gaskets, new rings and bearings. Did not bore it. Drove it back and forth from Florida to Texas on I-10 several times cammed up. Rebuilt motor now. Everyone has a longer story, but I'll end it here. Daily driver off and on, on for going on 6 years. It's a fun to car drive. Hoping to get the AC back in!

Nice history Charles! I hadn't realized you were into hot 5ohs as much as you were. I missed the 1/4 mile thing, cos it seemed like ya had'ta have either money, or knowledge ... I had neither.
I, for one, am glad you persevered, and found that great car in Sacramento ... wouldn't'a got to meet two real nice people in Wimberley otherwise.