OLD CROW 3V Mustang gets a Polish, Wax and Rear Spoiler

 hen Brent comes into town, for the first time in like 8 years, what do we do? We play in the garage! YUGE shoutout to Brent for spending many hours buffing out OLD CROW's 15 year old paint! It looks AMAZING!!!! Thanks to Corey for lending your polish and buffer! 

Brent also sold me some of his aero parts that he custom fabricated for his RED BARON 3V Mustang. He is upgrading to a "big boy" track wing! (More on that project in the future) That means he wouldn't be needing his "duckbill" style fiberglass spoiler he fabbed up a couple years ago. So, he brought it up to Utah along with his original front canards, which will be installed later. The one thing to note with the look of the car now is it is screaming for some new wheels and lower stance. LOL I was able to sell off the Ford Racing Intake Manifold for $350 to a local guy who picked it up. That gave me the funds to buy Brent's aero parts. 

Let's get to some action shots of the day.

First job was to do a wet sand pass at the spoiler's surface. It had some minor wear and tear from use. Of course we had to put a new coat of paint on it.

Being that it is Nov 4th today, we got pretty lucky with some nice weather, which started out at like 50F and it made it to like 61F. Shortly the weather will turn to winter mode, so we were thankful for the great weather while we hung out in the garage for most of the day. 

While giving Brent a chance to drive OLD CROW, we grabbed some materials from the Kaysville Autozone, including some Rust-Oleum "Ultra Matte Black" acrylic enamel for the spoiler. We also grabbed some sand paper and double backed tape rolls for installation of the spoiler and future canards.

Brent's trick for an easier installation was to only pull up the corner of the tape's backing, fold it out of the way so it can be pulled out later. With the tape backing pulled off only partially, the spoiler was set in place. Then once in place, he pulled the tape backing off with just a little pressure in places to let the backing come out. Boom! Here's Brent cleaning up the spoiler after it had micro dust from the polishing process. 

Here's a finished look at the back end of OLD CROW with the spoiler mounted up! You'll also notice the trunk panel is blacked out with some vinyl. Brent brought some 3M Automotive grade vinyl as well to black out the trunk. It is an "easy" accent piece to the dark Vapor Silver and Black look I'm going for. Brent made quick work of the vinyl lay down and it looks very nice! 

So, the buffing and polishing of OLD CROW's 15 year old "Vapor Silver" paint was initially just an idea the night before. I think once Brent got a close up look of the scratches he wasn't having it and wanted to give the Mustang the "Hechtspeed" treatment!

Here is Brent on the buffer. In the background is cousin Ben Hecht all the way out from Indiana getting convinced to sell his 2000 Mazda Miata and to pick up an S197 Mustang 3V GT! HEH HEH

Another angle of Brent polishing away!

Here is a shot of Brent working this section of the trunk that had a pretty deep set of scratches. I remember the original owner saying they were so upset when they put a pot on the trunk and when setting it down or pulling it off, scratching the crap out of the Mustang. Well, the scratches aren't gone gone, but they're much improved and harder to spot.

After polishing, we headed over to check out Corey's 1973 DeTomaso Pantera so Brent could get a close up view of it. After that, we headed over to Autozone again. Brent wasn't impressed with my wax paste selection that was honestly, probably about 10 years old at this point. haha Brent recommended we pick up some quality wax and detail spray. We picked up this "liquid gold" (at $21 on sale, normally $39.99 holy crap) Chemical Guys Hydro Slick ceramic coating "hyperwax". haha I love all the adjectives the marketing people use to sell this stuff. 

So, its pretty hard to pick up the level of improvement and shininess of the paint but here's a picture attempting to capture the look after the polish and wax job. It looks so much better than it did earlier in the morning. As Brent left, he commented that now OLD CROW has a good baseline from which to build from and that "now that fun starts"! 

After we were done, we commented to each other how simple and cool looking the 2005-2009 S197 Mustang GT is. That the 3V Mustang GT is a mostly unknown sweet spot in the Mustang's history. It gets out shadowed by the 2011-2014 5.0L Coyote powered S197 and then even more surpassed by the 2015-2023 S550. Just months ago the next generation of Mustang, the S650, has been available from dealerships. So, the 3V S197 is now 3 generations behind and is about 15 years old. The fact that I can pick up a 300hp rearwheel drive muscle car for $8800 is pretty cool to me! Obviously, I'd love to have a 450-500hp factory hot rod, but at $25k for a good 2011-14 GT and on up to like $50-60k for a regular S650 GT, that's just insane money for a regular Joe like me. Throw in the fact that I want to start doing autox and track days, the idea of something happening to a car that expensive really makes it not an option.

I'll add that my favorite part about my passion for cars is my ability to be able to modify a car myself in the garage and transform its whole look and driving characteristics! I guess its the "built not bought" mentality. 

Stay tuned, I'm hoping to be able to show up some parts soon and take the OLD CROW to the next level in looks and performance!

Thanks again Brent! It turned out amazing and I appreciate the hard work and attention to detail!