Further car whiffery (or: PW doesn't just think about corvettes!)

[puddingwrestler]

An idea I have been toying with for a while is the Mustang Wagon. Sort of a 'Ford does the Chevy Nomad in the mid sixties' kinda thing. And why not a mustang wagon? The Trans Am Kammbach nearly made it into production (that was the version with a wagon style tail end - it actually imporved aero dynamics apparently), and the Sports Wagon is a popular idea these days. Plus the 'stang was based on the falcon, which already came as a wagon.
I'd like to have a bash at building one of these, but I'm having a itty bit of trouble finding a notch-back stang model on eBay (i live far from the nearest hobby shop and think that AMT and Revell kits are not worth what they ask for them anyway; I don't pay Hasegawa prices for a re-issue of a kit from 1966 with metal axels) so I've photo chopped it together.
And yes, I have more car whiff ideas, and yes, I spend too much time thinking about cars.
Particularly steam driven cars.

[beowulf]

nice,..............reminds me of the Jag XJS Eventer estate that Lynx used to make

[puddingwrestler]

Being Australian, another of my favourite ideas is converting everything under the sun into a ute. A ute is basically a pick-up version of a passenger car. It drives like a car, and shares many of it's panels and parts with the car, but it can carry up to a ton of stuff. We're very big on them down here.
Ages ago, I started to convert a early 90s Trans Am kit I got from an op shop into a ute, but at that age my skills were not up to it.
I know for a fact that there is a BMW M5 ute out there somewhere, and also atleast one Bentley or Rolls Royce.
The possibilitgies are endless. If the Top Gear Austrlia lads can make a hearse from a smart, then you can make a ute from anything.

[jcf]

I've always liked the looks of the Volvo P1800ES and Lancia Beta HPE, so your Mustang has a definite appeal:





One note on your photochop, having owned two '65 Mustangs, you'll definitely want to add a pillar at the rear of the door,
it was not the most rigid of monocoques. 

The 1960-63 US Ford Falcon Ranchero is another favorite, while the earlier and later versions (along with all El Caminos) have
never done much for me.

[puddingwrestler]

The Falcon Ranchero is the same as the australian Falcon Ute. When the US stopped making falcons, we never did. Obviously they are not the same machine they were, and new models come out every five to ten years etc. but we've not stopped with falcon utes. And they are much niftier than the US Ranchero and El Camino.

[jcf]

I'm familiar with the Aussie utes and have been hoping-against-hope for years that Detroit would finally
bring them back to the US market. The Holden Ute was supposed to be a 2010 Pontiac model as a the G8 ST,
unfortunately it fell victim to GM's troubles. 

[PR19_Kit]

While the Lancia Beta HPE is (was....) a fine looking car, and was remarkably useful, and pretty quick too, it suffered from the two standard Itlaian car problems, namely it had an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures...) of about 3 mins and 20 secs and it rusted like you would not BELIEVE!  

I ran one as a company car for about a year, but it was so unreliable my boss took it back to the dealers before its year was up and made a hell of a fuss. They replaced it with a Fiat 131 Sport, which my boss had, and I got a V6 Cortina Ghia Estate, which lasted 120000 miles and hardly broke into a sweat.  

[sequoiaranger]

I have personally SEEN and touched a Mustang "Station Wagon" (SOMEWHERE I have photos, too). There were a few produced by a cottage-industry customizer sometime in the late 60's.

[puddingwrestler]

I'm familiar with the Aussie utes and have been hoping-against-hope for years that Detroit would finally
bring them back to the US market. The Holden Ute was supposed to be a 2010 Pontiac model as a the G8 ST,
unfortunately it fell victim to GM's troubles. 

Well, since the Commodore did get to teh US as the Pontiac G8, it's not going to be hard to convert a Commodore Ute; all the importat stuff, like the dash, interior and steering gear exist in wrong hand drive.
Falcon would be harder, but you could do it I guess.
Side note: Holden are sold in NZ, South Africa, and the middle east (as Chevys). Apparently the Middle Eastern nations liked large American style rear drive cars, and when GM in the US stopped making them, Holden kept right on going. So they re-badged commodores and sold them in the middle east. GM's current batch of rear drive cars are mostly based on Holden platforms. Which means the Camaro is really a Commodore in a party dress... which makes it seem so much lamer.

[jcf]

Yep, sold in the mid-east under the Caprice nameplate of all things, really makes ya wonder about those folks. 

Commodore in a party dress.     


Oh yes Kit, I'm personally familiar with the tin-worm problems of the Beta series having owned a '77 Beta Saloon.
The car was actually quite reliable as it was purchased from the original owner, a 25 years experience FIAT
and Lancia mechanic who had done a great job of sorting the vehicle. He also changed the engine back
to pretty close to European spec thus restoring it to decent performance levels. My maintenance tasks were
made easier by his including a full set of factory manuals and few of the special tools.

[PR19_Kit]

Side note: Holden are sold in NZ, South Africa, and the middle east (as Chevys). Apparently the Middle Eastern nations liked large American style rear drive cars, and when GM in the US stopped making them, Holden kept right on going. So they re-badged commodores and sold them in the middle east. GM's current batch of rear drive cars are mostly based on Holden platforms. Which means the Camaro is really a Commodore in a party dress... which makes it seem so much lamer.

And Holdens are sold in the UK as Vauxhalls, both in Coupe and 'Ute' forms, but I doubt Vauxhall call them utes here. 

They only sell the BIG engined versions, apparently marketed especially to blow the doors off any BMWs that are silly enough to try and take them on. 

Jon, I wish I'd have had your mechanic buddy down the road from me when I had the Beta! My dealer was over 100 miles from home (because that's where my boss lived when he bought it) and no-one locally would touch it. More than once I had it go wrong on the way home from having it 'fixed' and did a 180 and took it straight back, and once had it taken back on a recovery truck only two hours after picking it up!

When it worked it was gorgeous, but that tended to be in 5 minute chunks spaced WEEKS apart!

[sequoiaranger]

Sure enough, some googling came up with several pictures of SEVERAL wagon treatments of Mustangs. The B/w photo here is the one I remembered. I think it was BR Green, and was featured in a magazine article with the owner putting groceries in the back with the tailgate down, etc.



But of course others have done similar work, and here are a few:







I guess the Wagonizing fervor must have worn off by the end of the "classic" look of the '60's Mustangs, as I could not find any Wagonized Mustangs since.

During the googling, I also came across a recent article to expect four-door and wagon Mustangs in the future. Hmmm.

Maybe you know that Ford announced the termination of "Mercury" as a brand.  When I was looking for a new SUV a few years back, I looked at Ford Explorers, Mercury Mountaineers, and Lincoln Aviators. They were ALL clones of each other, with slightly increasing luxury (AND COST). I had previously owned a Ford Explorer, and loved the "Aviator" treatment, but it was $10,000 more than the nearly-identical Explorer. I bought a Toyota Highlander instead!!

[PR19_Kit]

LOVE that dark red one with the gold/yellow stripes. Did it have any connection with the Hertz GT-350Hs?

[puddingwrestler]

When I was looking for a new SUV a few years back, I looked at Ford Explorers, Mercury Mountaineers, and Lincoln Aviators. They were ALL clones of each other, with slightly increasing luxury (AND COST). I had previously owned a Ford Explorer, and loved the "Aviator" treatment, but it was $10,000 more than the nearly-identical Explorer. I bought a Toyota Highlander instead!!

This is the reason I don't go for current american cars. They have gone into badge engineering in a HUGE way, and have lost the flair for it they had in the early days when the cars shared a lot of body panels, yet always managed to look different.

[puddingwrestler]

ARII does a range of 'Owner's Club' 1/32 cars - mostly Japanese, but with atleast one European car (911). I was thinking about the possibility of having some fun by using American style traditional customizing techniques on them. I have one of the Toyopet Crowns. It'd be just like american customs, only teeny-weeny!
I am fully aware that Japan hasa  thriving custom car culture, and there are a vast number of imported american customs there, I was thinking more along the lines of 'how would it look if some chap in japan, with not much money, decided he wanted to have a go at making one of those customs that he saw in American films around 1955?'
Or... what if the same thing happened to an American or Australian, but his parent's bought him a small, efficient Toyota Crown instead of the hairy chested '55 Chevy he wanted?
You get the idea anyway...
Now I need a source of custom parts in 32nd... wheels especially!

And I qoute: "Man, that could be some righteous bitchin' ride! Hand me the plasma cutter!"