So, Black is the New Chrome

[pdub]

Got the latest American Muscle catalog earlier this week, the one for 05-09 Mustangs. Doggone them, why do they keep sending that thing to me? (Because they know I'll buy something out of it.) This time I got out cheap, went for the hood strut kit to do away with Red's hood prop rod, I hate that thing. 80 bucks, and I've already bought everything else in the catalog I want, sans all of the body trim and lipstick parts I DON'T want.

But check out this two-page spread for the different grilles you can get. Notice anything? Look at all of those black wheels, ALL of them. That's exactly the look Red had when they didn't have the rims I wanted in silver. Figured we could live with it. No, we couldn't. Unit refused to sit in the car until I got them powder coated silver, I hated the sight of them and all the young guys at work were drooling over how wickedly awesome Red looked with those black shoes. Different strokes, I guess.

[JOES66FURY]

yup...

[nickleone]

peewee,
Orange is the new black. LOL

Nick

[studemax]

Yeah.... I hate the trend towards black trim and wheels. Nasty looking.

[oletrux4evr]

Yeah.... I hate the trend towards black trim and wheels. Nasty looking.

Me too. Fugly.

[cobra]

OK, i'll go against the grain....I like black

[JOES66FURY]

The joys of build a car...you build it to your personal tastes and not the taste of others.

A brief history on my affinity for cars w/o chrome....since I was a kid I was drawn to the plain, mundane and otherwise simple look of a budget car. A car that a Appalachian hillbilly would happily run shine in. Hence the blacked out look on my car. Black and white to my eye is pleasing and simple, clean....Plus, it has a bit of a sinister presence about it....

If I could afford a set I would get some with a black center, and a brushed lip...but not chrome....too shiny...Joe don't like shiny....

[MR P-BODY]

I'm not a fan of black... now days EVERYONE has black
wheels...I dont like to be like everyone else

[DanStokes]

I'm with you, PW. Bling ought to be a bit shiny! Oh, and "sinister" is not my cup of tea, either. But then, I tend not to spend money on rims so it probably doesn't matter. I'll agree with "to each his/her own" - it's why we're not all married to the same person.

Dan

[Cruisin]

Before I sold my custom powder coating business doing black for the bike and car guys was the largest part of the income......we even had a few bike shops we were coating for sending us new chrome Vance and Hines pipes to do in black because V&H was so backed up. Hahahaha 6000 colors and all anyone wanted was black.

[pdub]

... and all anyone wanted was black.

I saw a guy wearing a Harley T-shirt with the caption, "I'm only wearing black until somebody makes something darker." HAHAHAAHAHH!!!!!

[Deaf Bob]

I wear GREY shirts.. Black shirts make me sit and sweat!
I've only started wearing blue again and my grands looked at me and whispered to their mommy, " Grandpa's shirt is not grey!"

[pdub]

One thing about it, those older Mustang GT's are a helluva lot of fun to drive, no matter how you decorate them to taste, and there's a lot of decoration available. And a lot of bolt-on GO parts that'll make them go faster. MUCH faster.

I got my new boss lady in the car today. My boss, seriously. She's in the car, and she's a whole lot of fun, laughing all the time every day. We were leaving the parking lot at work. She said, "Are you going to floor it?" I said no, it's too cold, the tires and the pavement are too cold. Those parking lot swing arms came up to let us out, .........yeah, a hundred yard dash to the stop light at US11. Spinning the tires, didn't get anything done, brakes, brakes, brakes...but she was laughing hysterically. "I'm gonna have to write you up!!!!!! Too fast in the parking lot!!!!" While she was laughing too hard to breathe. I don't think I'm in trouble. I don't think....is anybody hiring really bad old musicians who fart a lot?

[pdub]

I've said it before, too many times...it's just plumb amazing to me how many folks have never had fun with a car. Never. Acceleration, brakes....curves.....watch folks on the highway, they're scared to death of curves. I wouldn't want to be their brakes. Brake lights on for miles.

Dang, that's the world right there, why can't you enjoy driving the car? That's a whole nuther world, those curves. Scared of that? I predict we're all going to die anyway. We can get broadsided by a garbage truck that ran a red light on Main Street, relaxed in our environment, and you're completely just as dead as you were if you ran off of a cliff going way too fast in one of those movie scenes.

[pdub]

"This time I got out cheap, went for the hood strut kit to do away with Red's hood prop rod, I hate that thing. 80 bucks"

Why do I bother to try? I can't even install hood struts. The directions are easy - fender bracket - CHECK. Hood bracket - CHECK. Now, just take the strut and "Pop it in" on the hood and on the fender mounts. It's a ball-and joint intersection, all you have to do, according to the directions, is to "pop it in."

It looks like this. sorry, my camera won't focus on anything so close up, but here's what it is. These are loose parts, for the other side of the hood when I realized I can't do this job, as simple as it is. "Just pop it in." I've beat that MFer with a hammer until I've ruined it, squeezed it with channel locks, tried vice grips, I wanna see any mortal human just "pop that in."




There's another 80 bucks down the drain, that's a lot of beer. Dammit.