Introduction

Greetings. SuperSport asked me if I’d be interested in contributing to his Automotive blog (mainly because he isn’t getting ANY work done on his cars and won’t for many years to come) so here is my first post. Let me start off by saying I’m a Ford fan at heart, but I have love in my heart for all musclecars. I’m actually a pretty big Mopar fan and my next musclecar will be a 1970 Coronet (I dig that crazy front end).

Anyway, I’m in the process of building a 1978 Ford Fairmont Futura (See Supersports post on my car in January 2007). An overly-square 1978 Fairmont Futura with that crazy quarter window you ask? Well when I graduated high school my dad bought me a 1978 Fairmont Futura with a 302, 5 speed, and suspension from a mustang GT. I loved that car. It was that car that made me really fall in love with wrenching on my car. I was working at Super Shops at the time and probably gave back 75% of my pay check due to the employee discount. That’s where my attraction for the Fairmont began, but that’s a story for another time.

Back to 2008, or 2002 when I got the car (Man has it been off the road that many years already?). I bought it because being the original Fox body car (it came out a year before the Fox body Mustangs which appeared in 1979) every suspension/drivetrain part will interchange with a Mustang up to 1994. Also it’s a fairly light car. Consumers Guide has it listed as 2580 lbs with the 2.3 liter 4 banger (A great little engine I might add). I’ll be honest, that number seems WAY too low, but I’d say it’s probably in the 2800lb range. From a hot rodders standpoint the Fox chassis is ideal because it is one of the easiest and cheapest to work on due to the healthy mustang aftermarket and huge following.

But the main reason for the Fairmont was because I wanted a cheap car to learn how to do various things like build a rollcage, spray a paint job, and mini-tub a car. I figured who would miss a 1978 Fairmont? I bought the car in Florida for $1100 and spent $500 shipping it to Michigan (today I’d spend probably $3000 getting a car in similar condition). But as time went on I decided that this was not going to be a “learning experiment”. I have spent a lot of time redoing some of those failed learning experiments and redoing things I decided I could do better a better way. Let me translate that for you, I love the car.

Anyway, I just completed a 2 year process of mini-tubbing the car. No it was not so much work that it took me 2 years to complete it, I’m just pretty busy and the Fairmont ends up taking a backseat to a lot of other projects. Plus I was in a bad motorcycle accident last April and have not done much work for the past year. But I’ll stop with the excuses. I’m charged up and plan to make significant progress on the car this year.