My sons Ecar...

[daveSanborn]

Three years ago I embarked on a journey into hell by agreeing to build an "all out" Mustang for my oldest son. While I wanted to keep it simpler and build a '67 Shelby GT500 tribute car, his plans differed as he wanted to follow in the footsteps of Unique Performance (UP) and build a GT500E "Eleanor" car. Dealing with UP for most of the unique parts was a freakin' nightmare, but in the end perserverance paid off and the car was finished in almost a year to the day.

Now that the car is finished.... and even gone through a repaint to all black, the biggest problem with this car is the attention it recieves. It can't leave the driveway without men,women and children literally wetting themselves to get a closer look. The car was originally painted Pepper Gray w/ the Black stripes. We thought painting it all black would downplay the curb appeal, but it's still a major annoyance, almost to the point that the car is not fun to drive. People literally go nuts to get close to the car... they're driving down the road alongside/front/rear of you with their cell phone cameras dangling out the window not paying any attention to the traffic around them.... I get VERY nervous driving this car. It's heavily insured, but even a minor hit to the front/rear of the car would be a bodymans nightmare. My son had plans to drive it across country this summer; he's driving his '57 F100 instead mostly to avoid these hassles.

Here's a picture.

 

[tarafied1]

I love the look of that car in Black, I think it looks better in black. In fact I recall reading somewhere that the movie guys wanted black but it didn't show up well on film or something like that.
I also know what you mean, when I drive mine I get the same thing and mine is just a coupe. It takes me half an hour to get gas. My wife knows when I leave in it, I won't be back for a while. Lots of thumbs up, rubber necking and pictures. The funny thing is every kid with a loud car or truck has to rev their engine or try to race me. That is really annoying more than the looks.

 

[Sluggo]

Dave,
I'm not really into e cars but that thing is sweet.

Only one thing springs wood like a Mustang and that's a Phantom.

Where is that Double Nuts RF4-E parked at?

 

[daveSanborn]

Where is that Double Nuts RF4-E parked at?

Right down the road from my house on the way to work. I work as a gov. contractor supporting the Harrier, specifically the Rolls-Royce produced problematic turbofan engine at MCAS Cherry Point. The town (Havelock) convention center doubles as a mini-musuem of sorts. Local volunteers reworked the donated aircraft to display outside. There's the Phantom, an A-4M "Super-Mike" SkyHawk, an A-6E Intruder and a CH-46. All of these aircraft served aboard the local Marine base back in their day. The first 10 years of my enlistment I worked on the A-4s. They were super easy to work on and maintain. For 4 years I was on "flight skins" flying backseat in the two seat trainers we had. I logged just over 120 hours of stick time and did everything imaginable except a ground controlled approach/landing..... GCA's in this little highly manueverable aircraft were almost impossible.... for me anyway.... you pretty much stop looking at the runway/horizon, focus on "the ball" and follow the voice commands of the tower for heading, airspeed and altitude. I tried it a couple times, but failed miserably. I suppose flight school might have helped me if I'd have gone.

When the A-4 was finally phased out of our active inventory, I made the switch to the Harrier. What a piece of shit aircraft it is. It performs very well, but the man-hours involved to support 1 flight hour is outrageous (as an example, to remove the Harriers engine, the entire top of the aircraft has to come off first. Your're looking at a days worth of work just to get the engine ready to come out. An F/A-18 engine can be "dropped" by a couple of HS kids with an adjustable wrench in under an hour and a half). I worked the night shift for the first 6 of my 12 years on the Harrier. We'd go in each day at 4PM and more often than not greet the day shift at 7AM after busting our asses to fix most all of the 20 aircraft in the squadron.

Sitting here now, I'd go back and do it all over again in a heartbeat.

 

[Fast68back]

I learned on A-4's in "A" school, the squadron I was in had three phantoms left the day I checked in, and they left withing a couple days for mothball. About a week later they got the first of F14A's that I worked on for the next three years. Gotta love 'em.....

 

[tarafied1]

I flew a model airplane once... :naug