Project Austin
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Take one 1949 Austin A40 with it's 40 horsepower 4 cylinder manual transmission
complete with piles of rust. Add blowtorches, cuttoff wheels, and a huge dumpster
(which we like to call eBay) and this is about what you'll get.
On this one, we pretty much dove right in. We were careful at first, removing
the radiator, engine and transmission, etc. for possible use later on. Then
we thought, hey, what's the point? We started aligning a Chevy 4.3 and a Ford
3.0, but neither of them fit very well. So, we gave up and threw a Chevy 327
in it, chopped the frame and firewall and threw it all away! The first picture
below shows the car when we wanted it all together, the second picure shows
all the way through the body after we cut most of it off.
So then began the measuring and thinking. What to use here? Mustang 2 front suspension? Nope, won't leave any room for something else and rubs over here. Will this fit here? Nope can't make it happen. Aha! I have an idea, what if we took this thingy and cut it this way and welded two of these on over here? Well, conversations like that took place many, many times over the course of a few months. If you stare at it long enough, your brain will get bored and give you a good idea just so you'll go do something! Finally, we ended up with a Ford Explorer 8.8" rear end (cut down in length of course), the Chevy 327 and automatic transmission, Jeep Grand Cherokee driveline, Jeep Wrangler fuel tank, Dodge Dakota seats, a full Toyota pickup torsion bar front suspension and frame horns. Yes, this will be the tiny British hot-rod composed entirely of truck and 4x4 parts! So, once most of that was figured out, we began all the sanding and sandblasting and cutting and welding that would keep us busy for a few more months. A lot of the pictures are just mock-ups, where we set the stuff in place to see what it looks like and how exactly it will fit.
These show the underside of the car, before we sealed and repaired it, the body on with the engine installed, and finally one with the nose on as well. The nose will come back off for body work, but the body might finally be on there for good!
This project we pretty well interrupted by not having anywhere to paint and by Project F150. As of March '06, this one is still waiting. We'll be back on top of it after Project Mustang is painted and Project F150 is completely done.
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