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BACK to Me and my Shadow supercar: Project notes: Concept sketches part five | 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 supercar site map |
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Above image is a 1970s era snapshot taken by a friend in college (the friend owned the other car). This is the friend referred to as "Will" in the stories. Shadowfast is the car on the left. The photo was taken from the top of a football stadium wall, with the cars in the empty stadium parking lot. With regards to the supercar logs chronology, the moment Will snapped the two photos shown on this page would almost certainly have been in the time frame of the same school quarter as the field trip shoot-out. As he was Steve's younger brother, and not with us at college the first year described.
See the odd colored patch in the center of Shadow's roof? It's the scorched location of the previous CB antenna mount, burnt to a crisp by a lightning strike in Tornado Alley.
![]() Above image retrieved in 2004 from a 1970s era snapshot likely taken by either my dad or brother. The photo was salvaged from a large customized auto photo montage board hanging in my brother's personal car restoration workshop for decades. So far as I could judge from the pics it was the oldest one there. I gently wiped off the pic but couldn't remove some gunk on the image for fear the photo would disintegrate before I could scan it. |
![]() Above is a 'retouched' version of the original photo by my nephew J.H. Mooneyham, with some of the most obvious damage to the photograph removed. It appears J.H. accidentally removed a hood pin, the wide-angle mirror, passenger seat, and a roll bar component too. But keep in mind he never saw the car in person: Shadow had already been gone almost two decades before he was born. |
Just above are two versions of the third photograph in existence today of Shadow close to its ultimate form. One of the images is 'raw' while the other has been cleaned up a bit in an image editor.
Shadowfast is painted all flat black here: the poor photo quality vastly exaggerates light intensity here. The light colored streaks are sunlight striking the car through a cover of trees (note the same bright tint in the distant background, consisting mostly of bright sunlight hitting a grass lawn and paved street).
This photo shows the custom air dam and front fender flares, grill, '70 Mustang front end caps, driving lights, hood louvers and scoop. The wide-angle rear view mirror is also visible behind the windshield. A support beam of the roll bar is evident. I'd forgotten about the custom signal lights I put behind the grill to replace all the factory standard items, until I saw this photo. They're hard to see when unlit because they're behind a fine black nylon mesh screen. The entire grill assembly was a single item which could be lifted up out of the car when the hood was open. Sort of a sheet metal box with no back and the mesh screen for the front. The CB antenna mount in the middle of the roof may be visible (I only screwed on the antenna when I expected to need it). There's no hood pin lanyards visible, so I guess this is after I began using tiny padlocks in the hood pins instead of the standard rings and rods, and did away with the cables altogether. As in the other photos, the removable bottom half of the air dam is missing. It also appears that the standard Mustang dashboard has not yet been replaced with the GT-40 custom design. After seeing this pic I noticed the same thing in the first shot above. I guess the custom dash was one of the very last things I did to the car. And that all these photos must have been taken within relatively short times of one another, despite happening maybe hundreds of miles apart and taken by different photographers.
Shadow's showing some battle scars too above. Namely, the driver's side front fender, which perhaps got reworked one too many times along the way. Over the edge depicts one major injury to that particular body part.
My records indicate at one time I had a photo of the damage inflicted to Shadow's driver's side rear quarter panel by the pick up truck purposely ramming us at the four-way stop in What goes around.... But that photo may have passed into the hands of a long lost lady friend along the way-- so I no longer possess it to show here.
Other photos I wish I had to show you would include at least one good shot of the custom rear spoiler work (see concept sketches part five for an artistic rendering), the engine compartment and underside of the hood (to show off the custom ram air design, among other things), and shots of the custom interior, including overhead console, GT-40 dash, carpeted rear shelf with battery and storage compartments, and snap-in panels throughout. The specially equipped foreshortened trunk would make a good shot too (and open would show more of the rear spoiler customization).
Photos of the underside both front and rear would be nice as well, revealing the significant suspension mods, and possibly even some of the brake cooling ductwork.
In an ideal world I'd even have a couple shots of Shadow at night, showing both his normal light array and his stealth mode-- where only those lights facing forward lit up.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I guess while I'm talking about truly dangerous stuff here like having no rear lights (egads! No way would I do that today but as a desperate last resort!) I might also mention a few times early on Shadow made some night runs with no lights at all, me driving by moonlight alone. END NOTE.
I also have more original concept sketches from the design stage of the car.
What was it like to drive this real world supercar? Amazing!
What secret weapons did this car possess to stymie pursuits and more?
BACK to Me and my Shadow supercar: Project notes: Concept sketches part five | 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 supercar site map |