Hoods and Unicorns Oh My!

Well my idea of a total sleeper car has been thrown out due to a slight engine size miscalculation?  So now comes the fun part of trying to cover up the engine bay and not make it look retarded in the process.  Three hoods and several unicorns later the boys down at Barillaro Speed and I finally came up with a really sweet looking compromise between new and old.  But before we just mount a prancing unicorn and ride all the way to the end of that rainbow lets back up a bit and see how everything all came into focus.

1966 Original, still the best...

I would of loved to keep all the original body lines on this car, because well the 1966 mustang just looked really good.  Sure, I would of traded out a few details here and there, but overall the sheet metal lines were just right from the get-go.  That being said I was going to build up a 302 Boss engine to fit under the stock hood.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, once I came across that GT500 drivetrain my project just did a full tire-smoking, gravel-slinging, hang-on-for-dear-life power slide into something way more than I was ever imagining from day one.

The ever expanding hole...

While working on getting the engine in the car, I kept wondering just how much clearance I needed under the hood to get that beast of an engine covered.  Well at first I cut a small rectangle out that didn't look so big.  Even with the hood closed the supercharger didn't really stick up as much as I was figuring, YAH!!!  But I celebrated a bit too soon. Once I added the throttle body and air intake, my little hole became a massive rip in the hood really quick.  So much for the sleeper idea.  Now I was off searching the catalogs for something that would work.

Cowl Hood fits everything...umm nope?

After a few catalogs and several calls later I got this 2.5" cowl hood from Maier Racing.  The quality of this fiberglass hood was top-notch, and it looked decent enough on my car.  It vertically cleared the engine with ease, but it didn't clear the throttle body.  If I haven't stated this before, THIS ENGINE IS WIDE!!!!  Basically I needed the cowl portion to be another 1/2" or 1" wider  on the driver side to clear the throttle body (in the pictures I actually have the throttle body off the car).  Luckily I'm really not partial to the cowl style since it's more off a rip off from the Camaros than born of the Mustang breed.  My problem with these types of hoods is that it added another two horizontal body lines on the hood, and ends in a large angle that over hangs the cowl.  On a Camaro that was fine because it ended at the windshield, but my car has a half a food of flat cowl space between the hood and the windshield. So I had the option of doing quite a bit of fiberglass work to get it to fit and still not be overly excited about the styling, or go for broke and craft something out of metal.

Shelbys Like to play with Shelbys...

At this point I was digging around for hoods that have alot of horizontal clearance.  After looking at several different fiberglass designs, I really didn't see anything that suiting my fancy and really "fit" my car.  That all ended when I ran across the 1968 Shelby hoods.  These hoods looked phenominal on the 68 cars and after studying it a bit more decided that it was the best way to go.  There is one company (Fiberglass Specialties in Nevada) that makes a 68 style fiberglass hood but after speaking with them it only gave me at the most 1" of clearance, and I needed at a minium 1.75" to even begin to work.  So I called up Jim and Mike at Barillaro Speed to see what they could do.  After a few calls and some pictures later my car was off again to get it's final styling.

Let me just say, these guys are masters of sheet metal.  Seriously, no matter what you need they can handle it.  It's not just steel they are amazing at, but most of their aluminum work is just over the top also.  You can see their website here: (http://www.barillarospeed.net/)

Anyways back to my story, I gave they a few pictures of various 68 Shelby hoods and they were off.  The main thing I wanted was to not add body lines, expecially long ones that run down the length of the car.  So taking the original updraft, it was extended to cover everything.  These drafts were at a smaller angle to make the hood look not so fat.  Then the scoops in the front were grafted in with a small reveal to give it some depth.  This was followed by the adding some compound angles to get the rear of the hood finished off and back down to the original cowl height.  After alot of detail work, the vents were opened up in the back and trimed out in the front.  Next a custom inner structure was built to clear everything and add some strength to the center of the hood.  The final cherry on top was the screen mesh inserts to really trim finish off the hood.  And the final result?  Phenominally awesome.

But the fun didn't stop at the hood.  Taking a cue from the 1965 Shelby R, the lower valance was opened up to allow air to get to the heat exchanger and then trimmed off with some 65 mustang honeycomb grille material.  And the final-final resulet?  Freaking mean, just plain mean.

Final Thoughts...

I'm completely thrilled at the way the whole appearance of the car has come out.  I really think that the new hood and valance sets my car at a much higher class than I originally envisioned.   And it still has that 60s styling that I originally fell in love with.  So here's to a job well done *toast*.  Here are few more pictures to show some of the detail.  Just a bit of finishing bodywork and it will be perfect.