A slight change in plans. After stripping the car down to almost nothing, something else came up. Shawn had been interested in a ’68 Ford Cortina that someone had been trying to sell for about the last year or so. We started talking about going in on it together and making a rally car out of it. To make a short story out ot it, I went to the bank and got a loan so that I could buy it and have some extra cash to work on the bug at the same time with.

With the advent of the Cortina the plans for the bug have taken a slightly different turn. Originally I had in mind a vision of a low-slung Mustang killer that could also handle the canyons and dams in the Fort Collins area. It was going to be a lean mean show car with way too much money poured into the engine, transmission and body. Now that I have the Cortina to do all of this in I have been rethinking the design of the bug. More and more I find myself picturing it as a daily driver that has a beautiful paint job, nice wheels, good stereo and a comfortable interior in which to drive around year-round. I still want to chop it, though.

So, let’s see where we are right about now. The body is pretty much stripped completely down. I need to order the fenders and decide if I want to replace the front clip and lid. The car was in an accident in which it got it’s nose bent but it’s been straightened since then. My thinking here is that if I want to show this car I may not want any visible wrinkles on the body. I also might just have it straightened out a little bit more.

All of the glass is out, with the exception of that which remains in the doors. This is the next bit to get removed. The door lever arms will be removed as I plan on putting in suicide doors with solenoids for opening the doors. The switches will probably be in the dash instead of on the door. This will be combined with a keyless entry system. The door glass will also be electric with the controls on the dash, or on a console underneath.

I’m going to replace the pans as well. They aren’t in too bad of a shape, but the battery leaked out, and through, the right pan. The body is coming off for painting anyway, so I figured why not do the pans at the same time. I haven’t decided on seats yet and the originals won’t work after it gets chopped. I’m just about 6 feet tall so they’ll have to have to be pretty low in the bucket. I don’t want to feel like I’m driving a Fiero.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get this up to Kurt before too much longer and have him get started. I want to have just a couple things done; shave the rain gutters off, strip and paint the body, including new parts, do maybe one piece of customization to the front end (I’ll show pictures of this if I do it), maybe french some lights and maybe the license plates, chop it and suicide the doors. That’s not too much, is it?