1968 Mustang Project KISS

Pity the poor guy with a tight budget who wants to build a bitchin’ restomod. That age-old pesky issue of limited cash flow (and an unhappy spouse) makes building a nice restomod challenging at best. However, at Mustang & Fords, we’re here to be your dream spinner and to show you how to build a budget restomod with pride.

As we told you during our first installment of Project KISS, you don’t have to spend a fortune to have a nice, classic Ford restomod. Our own Project KISS is a case in point. We snapped up this ’68 Mustang for a song at $250 (and it’s a California car!). It was a beat-up, old, partially disassembled coupe a fellow hobbyist wanted to unload. We were there with the cash and a car trailer. There are dozens of stories like this all over any region of the country.

If you beat the bushes hard enough, you can find a vintage Ford in need of tender loving care and a future. But here’s the catch. You must be patient. You need an open mind. You’ve got to be persistent. And you must be prepared to search for quite some time before landing upon your dream pick. Sometimes, you have to build an alternative ride, then trade up. Call it the “sweat equity” approach to car building. It’s like buying that first home. You settle for the three-bedroom bungalow close to town with a one-car garage, then allow it to gain value and equity with your improvement efforts. Then you sell at a profit and use the cash windfall to buy something nicer.

Your project doesn’t have to be a mainstream Ford, Mercury, or Lincoln either. Be original. What about a ’72-’76 Torino hardtop? Lots of potential there. How about an Edsel? Just imagine what you could do with a Lincoln Continental Mark III or IV. Call this one a “restolux.” How about one of yesterday’s budget picks like a Falcon, Comet, Fairlane, or Meteor sedan?

Consider our good friend, Marcie Innes of Fastline Performance in Simi Valley, California. She’s building a ’64 Falcon four-door station wagon with 289ci small-block power. The car cost her virtually nothing—just haul it off, here’s the pink slip. She’ll build a small-block, find a healthy C4 Cruise-O-Matic (cheap to find, easy to build), install Granada disc brakes, clad the body in budget paint from Earl Scheib, Maaco, or 1-Day Paint & Body, freshen up the interior, and she’s good to go with an unusual Ford restomod. Our point? Your budget Ford project doesn’t have to be a Mustang. It just has to have potential for greatness.

Sweat Equity

When we sat down and planned Project KISS, we had to think about how to save money, not to mention time. We’re talking being really stingy here. Being a magazine with a lot of resources, we’re spoiled rotten. We had to resist the temptation of calling people who could come to our rescue on this one, because that doesn’t give the average reader the right idea.

Project KISS is going to be our own sweat-equity undertaking. Our time. Our sweat. Our skinned knuckles. Our pride when it’s done. We’re going to figure out both time and cash-flow budget issues. We’re going to do things we’ve never tried before. And we’re bringing our readers along for the ride.

My son Brad Smart, who lives in Tennessee, began disassembly of Project KISS during his holiday visit back in December. A buddy next door, Joe Castro, will continue in Brad’s absence. We’re going to teach Joe, and you, how to build a classic Ford on a budget. So grab some tools and let’s get started.

Disassembly

Disassembly must always include organization: cataloging parts, proper storage, and determining direction. Direction means knowing what you’re going to do with each part and when. Fasteners like bolts, nuts, washers, and other items should be stored in cheap, plastic food containers you wouldn’t mind throwing away when the job is finished. Each container should represent a specific area of the car. If you throw all of the fasteners in one container thinking you’ll remember where they go, you’ll be sadly mistaken later. Automobiles consist of hundreds of fasteners, many of them with a specific mission. They must all go back in the correct location.