Yeah, those stripes are TERRIBLE in thier alignment. However, they are very typical of how most of the stripes were applied on production vehicles. One sure tip-off of a restored ( or at least repainted) car is arrow-straight stripes.
I must admit on my last repaint, I did not get mine as straight as they should have been.
Oh, I dont think Ford would hesitate to ship non-running bucks anywhere for ad purposes. In late 2004, I had the honor of having my 71 share a stage with the upcoming new 2005 Mustang GT convdrtible. I got the invitation mostly because my car is also red.
I had to have my car at the hotel in Orlando by the airport early to be put in the ballroom. While there I saw them moving the 2005 buck into place. Not only did it not run, nor have a drivetrain...it didn't even roll!
It was moved on a platform, two forklifts lifted it from either end and the platform was removed. The detail guy then cleaned it up.
The car looked authentic from a few feet, but up close and personal it was clearly a sham. None of the switches moved, the upholstery was rock-hard foam under the vinyl, the steering wheel did not turn and the gauges looked very "custom-made" up close. All the typically vinyl decals were paint. The wheels looked great, the tires while clean and new-looking were obviously dry-rotted on close inspection.
No matter, no one could get within 10 feet and from that distance it looked perfect.
I have no doubt Ford would have shipped non-running bucks...but there is no proof that these particular cars in question were non-runners, just idle speculation.
That's really an interesting story! Wonder why they wouldn't have a regular production car for display at such an event, especially late in 2004? I really like the 2005 cars, and would like to find a nice convert. I have a 1989 GT convert with only 6500 miles on it. I'm the original owner.
One of the things I discussed with the exec from DST was his work with Carol Shelby and Bill Stroppe back in the mid to late 60's. He and his company worked directly with them on the ads, and did any mods necessary to put together the photo shoot or show displays. He related how the FTC got on their cases at that time and stopped them from continuing to use fiberglass mock ups of the Shelby cars in their ads. Before that, things had gotten pretty wild, with cars being painted 2 different colors for different ads, one side green and one side red etc. Anything was pretty much fair game as they needed.
Bill Stroppe's son, Willy Stroppe told me his father's engineering company (which the son still operates today, doing mechanical protoypes for Ford, such as ABS systems- see their website) did the motors and mechanical mods on Fords West Coast show/display stuff, and he speculated that his company likely would have been called upon to change the motor out on my car. But, he had no documentation of such.
It was said earlier in this thread that there was no evidence my car ever had the NACA (NASA) hood. The opposite is true. The documentation called for the ram air hood when the car was built, and the special hood springs are still on the car to this day. I do believe that after the photo shoot in the desert, they had to again change the hood anyway, due to a large depression on the driver's side, half way to the front. (Nobody's mentoned that yet !) That would explain the slight difference in the curve of the blackout at the front corners. Mine has a blackout line that looks much more "factory-like." But, if you're swapping motors on the car, the hood's already off, and was likely changed once already.
BTW Here's one I'm not sure you already posted:
Interestingly, when you enlarge this photo, it has a canvas texture, made to look like an oil painting. The photo with the funky pants guy did not get that treatment. The one with the guy and gal has an oil paint look to it, but not the canvas look.
And finally, if this isn't long enough, I don't see what you guys are talking about re: the fog light placement on the front grill. These look the same height as the press cars, when taken from this angle:
What am I missing. By the way that roof line at the C-pillar, where the quarter is leaded to the roof, is a very difficult area of sculpting. (If you do this kind of work, you can skip the rest of this paragraph !) But, with a file, it can change appearance very quickly. I have spent hours with lead, and with fillers in this area of a car. I can't imagine doing it in an assembly line environment. That's why some of the cars have a lot of lead, and a crisp break up high, and some have a dull rolling fade into the roof. The edge line then gets lost into the roof. Also, next time you are standing behind a fastback, look straight up that edge toward the roof. On some cars, there is no "ridge" and on some, it waves in and out like a roller coaster. And that's when it's new, before the swelling starts ! Gotta respect those line worker's for what they managed to turn out, given what they had to contend with.
I also think the photos of the back of the desert car show the black extending slightly above the decklid style line, almost to the lock. It makes me believe the lower decklid line was already there when produced with the "standard" Boss striping. The addition of the upper stripe would be easy, and one more piece of vinyl striping or an airbrush, would easily cover the little yellow showing just below the bottom Boss stipe.
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