The project is now complete. The final video can be viewed here.
The Story Behind the Project
As a senior at The Ross School, I had a unique opportunity: I spent my last year of high school focusing on a personal passion. Our “Senior Project” is something Ross students think about – and plan for – as soon as we start high school.
Cars have been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. In fact, if you ask my parents, they’ll say I’ve been pointing at cars and trucks since before I could talk. As a kid, my room was filled with Matchbox and Hot Wheels, my shirts, sheets and walls were covered in cars and trucks, and I would only read books and watch videos with automotive themes. My first car was a battery operated Fisher Price Jeep that I drove endlessly around the backyard, navigating in and out of the orange cones that my folks had cheerfully put out for me.
As I got older, my tastes matured, but my passion remained. I started watching the British TV show “Top Gear,” going to the Auto Show at the Javits center every year, playing driving simulator games on my Playstation, and challenging myself to identify any car on the road, type and model, at a single glance.
During my freshman year of high school, I spent three weeks interning at Joe’s Garage in Southampton, under the mentorship of Joe Frizell. That took my passion one step further, by allowing me to learn about the inside of a car as well as the outside. It was also the first time it occurred to me that I might, one day, restore a classic car of my own… maybe even for my Senior Project.
I started saving up – birthday and Christmas gifts, and later, paychecks – and over the course of the past four years, I finally accumulated the funds to purchase a fixer-upper.
This past June, after several months of dreaming and searching, I found the project car of my dreams: a 1966 Mustang Coupe.
I did as much of the work myself as I can, and documented every step on my blog,www.mustangsam.net, as well as via short Before-and-After films. In addition to the engineering, mechanics and design lessons I learned, I experimented with entrepreneurship by building and following a budget, launching and running a fundraising campaign, and continuing to develop strength in my other two passions: computers and film-making.
The entire project comprised three parts:
1 – Mechanical, Interior and Exterior Work on the Car Itself
2 – Creating and Maintaining the Budget and Fundraising Campaign
3 – Documenting the Entire Process via the MustangSam.net Blog, photos, video and the Before-and-After Film.
I built a budget based on estimates from Joe’s Garage, Aventura Motors, CJ Pony Parts and other local automotive experts/consultants. I raised over $10,000 to cover most of the costs of the project via an IndieGoGo campaign.
Everyone who contributed is acknowledged HERE, as well as in the Before-and-After film.
Needless to say, I am immensely grateful to all those who supported the project, in so many different ways.