Introduction and Goal Setting

What happens when you take a kid with little mechanical experience, throw a little money, some balls, some ingenuity, and a 1965 mustang?

You get what we have here: An amateur's story of modifying or restomoding a 1965 Mustang Fastback.


As you can see, the mustang looks great from afar. I assure you, though, it is far from great. The previous owner put nice rims on it and gave it a nice paint job, but that's about it. Aside from it being a mostly rust free car, everything is going to be replaced!

The main goal is to take this shabby old Mustang and bring it to today's standard of reliability and performance. I am learning as I'm going - learning to weld, learning to fabricate, and just about everything else required to do this project. Sit back, relax, and enjoy a Beginner's Guide to Restomodding!


Here is the plan:

1. Replace the 289 motor and 3 speed tranny for a 5.0 engine and T-5 tranny
2. Update suspension to today's standards by strengthening the shock towers, changing the A-arms, changing the struts, putting Koni shocks all around, changing the rear leafs and shackles, updating the sway bars, and adding subframe connectors.
3. Change the horse and buggy steering linkage to a rack-and-pinion
4. Update headlights to modern ones
5. Install Air Conditioning
6. Install power windows and doors locks and might as well completely redo the entire interior to today's standards.
7. Install bigger front discs and change to rear disc brakes and a 9" rear end
8. Repaint car to charcoal grey or silver with blue stripes and black 18x9 rims

Sounds easy, right! Well, my goal is to have steps 1-5 by summer '06. Steps 6-8 will have to wait to the end of '06.